Dcfung

Anime Expo!

2009-06-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be at the local anime con, Anime Evolution, this weekend (June 12-14th). I'll be sharing a table at the artist alley with my lovely and talented girlfriend Janet (ferus.deviantart.com) and our friends Felicia, Karen and Tomoko. It's my first time at an anime convention so please drop by and say hi!

I'll have our brand spanking new artbook: ZOMBIES NINJAS AND PIRATES there as well!

Yo Ho.

2009-05-28T13:43:00.000-07:00

I've completed work for an artbook called Zombies, Ninjas, Pirates from a group called Sketchrospective. Sketchrospective is a group of young, dangerous artists from the Canadian West Coast and the piece is by scale my most ambitious painting to date!

Zombies, Ninjas, Pirates should be available sometime in early June.

Laundry Day

2009-05-13T01:35:00.000-07:00

Ooh La La! Painting sillyness.

Sakura Days

2009-05-03T00:20:00.000-07:00

Another painting done for practice around November.

You know how in Anime's they always show characters standing around wistfully with pink cherry blossom petals blowing beautifully around them? There's a cadre of Sakura trees guarding the sidewalk outside my flat and as I walked outside today the little buggers were coming down like hail! I couldn't even see down the street because they were assaulting my face from every angle. So much for the poetic scene =) Anyways, the subject of the picture is a peach blossom tree not a cherry blossom tree so i'm digressing; but watch out for dem trees.

Two Forgotten Bronze Fellows

2009-04-24T19:18:00.000-07:00

Concept sketches for a ancient Chinese Golem? What is this? Shang Dynasty? Tang? Wu-Tang?

There are Peaks and there are Valleys and then there are Peaks

2009-04-15T18:57:00.000-07:00

Ah, good stuff.

So I heard the economy is down,
and so is the industry.
Almost everyone's out of work,
and the weather's a little shitty.
TV is cancelled because of disinterest.
Internet is cancelled because of fastidiousness.
...
Mwahaha! What a glorious time to draw!.

Wasteland, a breakdown

2007-11-18T16:46:00.000-08:00

Doing my latest photoshop painting was a lot of fun. Even early on, I thought it'd be interesting to post up the various stages in paint and as promised here is a breakdown of the process -which in itself is really a work in progress-:

1. I'm still just getting the hang of doing pictures entirely in photoshop and not working from scanned pencils etc. This time I started out with an extremely loose sketch over a flat background base; In the future I think i'll probably spend more time in this 'stage' since I had some real composition issues later on with the three characters ;p.

2. With the sketch in hand, I quickly roughed in some colour with a coarse brush just to have something to go off of. I'm just trying to lay in the basic shapes as well as some color difference. The landscape was, of course, done in a seperate layer and in fact I tried to have as many seperate layers as possible while keeping stuff organized (sometimes very unsuccessfully =) ). Something basic but totally invaluable I learned was that you can just right click while in the pointer mode to bring up a selectable menu of all the layers that are under where you're pointing your mouse.

3. At this point, I started rendering all the characters. I wanted to keep everything to a tight palette and as you can see from the sketch, tried to make a lot of corrections. One thing that I really like to do, but don't do enough of, is to look at a drawing in the mirror to make sure the proportions are correct since the eye tends to skew things in a certain direction. This is made much easier in 'shop where you can just flip the damned thing so I try to split half the time just working on the entire image in reverse. If it looks good both ways then you've got it made.

4. Ah, the background. I probably had the absolute most fun with this part. To me, painting is more akin to sculpting that drawing. In drawing, i'm used to draftsmanship where you try to be as precise as possible in rendering but with paint you're really just pushing colours all over the canvas and just trying to shape stuff until it feels right. Eagle eyed viewers will also notice several anamatomical changes on the characters as they didn't feel right.

Here's a view of just the background.

5. And finally, with some more colours and effects we arrive at the posted picture.

Here it is with the original sketch. Thanks for reading!

The Existential Robot

2007-11-05T23:03:00.000-08:00

HMR-0047D-B33 performing Hamlet at Stratford-Upon-Avon, 2096

Sketch, colour test.

Children of A Broken World

2007-11-04T22:00:00.000-08:00

The roomate picked up a ridiculously large flatscreen TV and a 360 last week so time's been, well, scarce; but in between lobbing incendiaries at alien hordes I finally got to sit down and finish the new painting this weekend. This was hella fun though it's still definitely a learning process. I've got some alternate "versions" of this which I might post and I might also put up a breakdown of the progress if I get some time this week. I love painting!

Noirlers?

2007-10-25T21:13:00.000-07:00

Whooooo... i'm ecstatic about Edmonton's win over Minny tonight. With all due respect to the team, it wasn't a game where I was expecting any points much less a win so it was nice to finally see the first line come together. Horcoff, Hemmer, Torres and Penner seemed like magic everytime they were on the ice. Still, It was a bit touch and go there, the Wild seemed to have an answer for every single play the boys made and what a weird shootout win, what with Belanger totally missing the net to set up Hemsky's wobbly dribble that just trickled in to win the game, but hey we'll take 'em anyway we can get 'em this year. Gagner scored probably the best SO goal of the bunch, this 18-year old is going to be a legend, book it!

Ok anyways, i've been further collating some older stuff and put together a comp of last years Film Noir comic that I did with Mandy and thought it'd be cool to share here. I'm not really feeling comics right now, especially in light of that 24 hour comic that I still haven't put up (heh, it's almost 24 weeks) but I love working with people and I always feel like I push myself alot farther with these projects. I like to collaborate with Mandy alot since she has a sort of furtive manic genius that I completely lack. Here's the pages, brush inking was super-fun:

Mandy wrote the story and I drew it.

Things have been pretty busy at work and any free time has either been sucked up by my fantasy hockey pool or feverish painting, so I haven't even touched a pencil to paper since monday. It's a concern though, and I'm starting to really yearn for die sketch so I think something will hatch in the next few days.

Zombies Broke My Heart

2007-10-21T22:47:00.000-07:00

It's around time that I need to brush up the portfolio, whether it's taping together old artwork or pinpointing new stuff I need to work on to fill some gaps. To that end, I conscripted my suffering roomate who spent most of saturday having to pour through volumes of my sketchbooks as I stood behind him holding a nail-studded bat and encouraged him to make suggestions. The poor bugger's actually a pretty experienced industry pro and me, I like free help.

Anyways I wanted to group some work together to cut down on the number of seperate images per page and I mashed together some of the concept art that I did when I went through my Zombie infection (not to be confused with my infection of THE Zombies, I still love those guys).

Looking at the timestamp, it's hard to believe that it's been exactly one year to the date that I worked on these. I remember taking a step forward with these and the anime style colouring and lighting (I think I was referencing Josh Middleton or Sunrise animation or maybe both) is still pretty cool to me. The poses however are terrible, so uncomfortably contorted, #1 and #3 stick out as particularly bad and likely proportional unsound, #2 is really boring and basically just a self-portrait although I remember that I was looking to draw someone different... pffff! The girl furthest right is alright, but still a little stiff. Bleargh! Still it's great fun to keep progressing.

The originals are still on my website for now and deviantart. Interestingly enough I've also got some non-blood variants and of course the whole series of backgrounds that I punched up for them.

Ooh La Laa

2007-10-21T22:22:00.000-07:00

Man, I'm totally drawing skanky stuff.

Confessions of your Offensive Neighbour

2007-10-20T21:35:00.000-07:00

I saw this ridiculous speed-painting clip last week which finally pushed me overboard into the torrid waters of digital painting. By happy circumstance I managed to produce this nice little tart which I also posted to devart last week (see links on the right). The new devart image sizing's are a bit small for my liking so i'm reposting it here:

You'll recognize some blatant pose and composition theft from the aforementioned clip, but I was really surprised and enthused by the result an hoped to continue on this vein. But treading this new territory, it's a huge learning curve and i'm having a lot more difficulty in the making of my sophomore effort. As a non-prolific painter, i'm discovering a lot of things as I go, for instance, you should never leave anything heating on the stove whilst you work; The smoke alarm has rung on two seperate occasions tonight as i've been carried away with trying to mix cool shadows in with flats and highlights.

This is really, really fun at the moment.

Ambient Beatles

2007-10-14T22:00:00.001-07:00

Listening to Past Masters at Café Crepe.

Hello Out There, We're On The Air, It's Hockey Night Tonight!

2007-10-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

Tension grows the whistle blows and the puck goes down the ice.
The goalie jumps and the players bump and the fans all go insane,
Someone roars "Bobby scores!" at the good ole hockey game.

So it's chilly outside and Hockey Season is in full swing. I can't exactly articulate what the appeal really is of watching a bunch of dudes who aren't me battling each other in vicarious feats of athletecism and daring, but I sure can feel it. This year i've stepped up my sport nerdery and joined a hockey pool and an even more exciting fantasy pool.

At the moment i'm sitting in the #1 spot of the hockey pool. It's actually pretty unexpected and I feel pretty excited about it, like I should be sitting at home in a jersey and waving a big foam finger at the monitor. This'll probably end tomorrow as somebody passes me and I get relegated to the bottom of the pack =)

Anyways, here's my picks in the order that I got them:

1 Spezza, Jason
2 Staal, Eric
3 Gaborik, Marian
4 Sykora, Petr
5 Horton, Nathan
6 Lidstrom, Nicklas
7 Hemsky, Ales
8 Toews, Jonathan
9 Brown, Dustin
10 Hossa, Marcel
11 Recchi, Mark
12 Connolly, Tim
13 Fisher, Mike
14 Peltonen, Ville

So no Crosby or Thornton unfortunately but it feels good to have Spezza who already leads the league in points and hopefully Staal will rebound from a relatively weak year. Looking at the roster, I get the feeling I chose with too much heart and it feels like I did pick a lot of dark horses and long shots. I have this ugly feeling that Lidstrom is finally going to decline and of those guys, Gaborik and Connolly have had some serious injury issues in the past (i'm not positive that either of those guys have ever managed a 70+ game year), Horton, Hemsky, Brown, Hossa and rookie Toews are still really developing and haven't reached that "jackpot" stage in their careers, and Peltonen is a near unknown as he's an older vet who came in from the Finnish Elite league... so he's an "inspired" pick to say the least.

Also i'm cheering on my Oilers again after a Smyth-induced hiatus. We're definitely not the team that made the 2005-2006 Finals anymore, but it's a dynamic team with prospects equal to our current weaknesses. In short, we're not going to win many games this year but the hockey's going to be hella exciting with young guns like Super Series MVP Sam Gagner, Cogliano, Nilsson and Gilbert and Smid in the rear.

October

2007-10-02T20:14:00.000-07:00

I called in sick today -which sucked- but it gave me the chance to sit down and do some scanning. I feel pretty bad looking at this sparse page because one of the main reasons in having a sketchblog was to produce regularly. However, spending all morning and afternoon attending a screen, mouse, tablet and keyboard; I find that i'm never really keen to spend any time on the computer in the evenings, much less the scanner. This doesn't mean that i'm drawing any less though, in fact, i'm actually putting more time aside to sketch every day which feels pretty good. It would definitely be nice to have some more of that up though.

One more argument for why should try to post more is that it's a whole different experience looking back at doodles that i've probably forgotten about by the next day. I find the progression of styles and ideas very interesting, so here's a selection of sketches from the last few weeks and i've tried to jot down some comments for each:

Teenage Dropkick

I've really clued into this scratchy, sparse style. I like the idea of trying to get my hands as loose as possible when I draw... not to mention it's a lot easier on the wrist.

The Evil Nurse

Hmm, this one is interesting because this was a failed sketch. I had a concept in my head, sort of influenced by Daryl Hannah's character in Kill Bill and Marly Shelton's character in Planet Terror (from Grindhouse) and I wanted to make something I could later finish in watercolours but it fell apart and I wasn't happy with the pose. The sunglasses are cool though, and you'll see that the weird melty though bubble finds it's way into later stuff.

Machete!

Have you seen the fake trailers for Grindhouse? I have a slew of post-it's at work chronicling the gritty exploits of Machete, sadly this is the only sketch I have handy here.

Dance, Dance!

I like this, I've been looking at solicits for black and white graphic novels and the idea of the alternating contrast really interests me. The white-black-white/black-white-black really makes things pop.

Two Old Men of Vastly Different Circumstances

I was probably just noodling around but looking at it now it's a contrast between a rich old man and a poor one. Retroactive introspection, yeah!

Miscellany.

And now, an everyman, a Kung-Fu Colonel Sanders and a Ice Cream Cone Sumo (and his posse).

Special Ed Forces

2007-09-09T22:10:00.000-07:00

I watched "Assault on Precinct 13" yesterday, which wasn't nearly as bad as I'd been led to believe. It almost looked like a John Frankenheimer movie, what with all the sudden snuffings of key characters and -for a moment- about 3/4's in, I actually thought they might just go ahead and snuff the protagonist. Predictable denouement all the same, the fancy rifles and elegant body armor got me all flushed and pining to pencil out some tactical aggression of my own.

other movie ripoffs include blatant Defoe posing and a Solid Snakey, Ryu-ey mashup

I always feel kindoff bad for drawing this slush, but the sad truth is that I grew up in the Lee/Liefeld/Mcfarlane era and really... special ops, guns and pouches... they feel gooood.

Mmm... Chips.

2007-08-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

munch, munch.

Last Days of Summer

2007-08-27T19:08:00.000-07:00

Shit, I was freezing my pretty little buns off this morning waiting for the bus to get here and the sun to rise.

Summer's over, boys.

It's a damned shame because I was really enjoying it and i've still got a few items on my hitlist that I wanted to get to before the grey enshrouds the city again. Martinis and patios anyone?

btw, don't worry I am still actually working on that 24 hour thing haha

Wetwork

2007-08-21T10:29:00.001-07:00

I think my brain is slowly collapsing. I guess that's why my mohawk is kind of sunk today.

yes. I am Angry + Hungry.

2007-08-20T18:36:00.000-07:00

Go figure: the day I decide to stretch and do a 24-hour comic is the day that I end up having to stay half those 12 hours at work.

MAGNIFICO-O-O-O!

2007-07-26T22:06:00.000-07:00

I'm not really getting as much time as planned to work on my little project, but here's some concept sketches:

Four old masters, in classic Queen formation. I'm really just looking for a nice face for a lone ancient wise guy so i'm hitting up some variations. Looking at them now, I don't really like the guy on the left so much; the top guy was probably drawn from the court musician in Hero, guy on the left from a villain in an old Shaw Brothers or Five Venoms movie (the same one that was sampled for that crazy Chemical Brothers video? and the fellow on the bottom looks like my favourite wiley old chinese man actor, Kim Chan!.

More Than Meets The Eye

2007-07-23T08:41:00.000-07:00

I think sometimes when we're talking about movies we can get carried away in our enthusiasm and it's jarring when we run into the empty and disapproving stares of people who might not be from our demographic. But to reiterate: We are men. Mature men. Mature men who like robots.

It's been almost a month since I last posted anything illustration related. I kind of enjoyed the break since i've been concentrating more on making "finished" drawings rather than doodles and there's a little work that I should probably be scanning up and dropping here. That being said, i'm starting to rear up for some more sketchwork. I'm going to work on a little side project for the next week, so i'll try to post some in progress sketches everyday again. Also if anyone's up for a sketch and a bit o' tipple let me know, i'm so there.

I, Godzilla

2007-07-15T16:11:00.001-07:00

Last week I had this odd leathery patch of skin on my neck. I'm sure it was probably just dryness, the hot weather or some physiological sign of the excessive hours i've been working but I'd like to think it was a dormant strain of reptillian DNA, slowly emerging to the forefront.

Justify My Love

2007-06-30T11:48:00.000-07:00

I don't want to disrespect him, but actually this kid has alot of gas.

I guess this guy would have been street in the 80's. He kind of looks like young Madonna spat all over him.

Please Hammer Don't Slay 'Em

2007-06-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

Had a dream where Buffy starred Kristin Bell and Alan Rickman. I didn't really notice a huge difference but i'm sure this would please many, many people.

Oh Edward!...

2007-06-26T21:53:00.000-07:00

Those friendships will never die because they hunger for THE FLESH OF THE LIVING!

On an off note, after stalking through your friends list

"Oh here she comes
Watch out boy shell chew you up
Oh here she comes
Shes a maneater".

Go Go! SUVTron!

2007-06-25T21:45:00.001-07:00

"You excited for the new Transformers movie?"?

"I was"

"You were?"

"Yeah, in 1984".

I bawled my eyes out watching that movie. Watching all your childhood heroes get slowly killed off and then who gets the Matrix of Leadership? That douchebag, Hot Rod! Anyways, that story had such a huge impact on me that I fully expect the new one to be a huge pile of dog crap; but a SHINY huge pile of dog crap. I've seen the trailers and even the game trailers and the camerawork and setups look absolutely crazy.

At work, it's getting really intense. I've been grinding really, really hard but somehow I don't think i've been making the impact I should be. So it's time to transform into full robot battle mode and beat down some deceptacon trash.

Soupir.

2007-06-19T20:17:00.000-07:00

That's all I got.

Unspeakable Horrors

2007-06-18T21:45:00.000-07:00

I held out for a long time but in the end I decided to join facebook. You see, facebook is like a zombie outbreak. You start by hearing vague little things about it on the news, you maybe notice that a one or two people are missing from where they should be. Then it starts to close in, people start acting strangely. Compulsively. They're talking all about it with nervous laughter but it doesn't seem right. Then in an instant they're all over you. At your house, your workplace, your favourite bar they are crawling through the windows and the mail slots. They are your best friends, your co-workers, your mothers and brothers and sisters. They are coming at you mindlessly flailing and hungry for you to join their cause, And as you look at them, you start to realize that they're barely the people you once knew. You can fight, you can run, you can lock your doors; but they will keep coming, and coming, and coming.

Then they get to you. The darkness rushes over... and suddenly it's not so bad, you don't mind being a zombie... hell, you might even like being a zombie and you start stumbling around trying to infect all your friends and loved ones with your newfound hobby.

Facebook. Tasty Human Flesh.

You see?

Anyways, I bit Joey on the shoulder today. Sorry man, just join facebook already.

Party Like It's 1997?

2007-06-17T21:43:00.000-07:00

What is incredible, is that she managed to hold on to this drawing for so long. Here's a ten-year-old drawing complete with totally goofy ass signature and somewhat questionable pencil crayon choices:

Mad love to Karyn for keeping and scanning this wild sexxx tiger. I'd thought she was lost, but now the Floam Ranger and Radiation Man are back in action!

La Poste de Jeudi

2007-06-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

The other Dan, or Big Jr. as I call him, is really devoted to his mom. Enough that we're apt to draw certain conclusions when he mentions that he's skipping out to go shopping with his mams. Young man, thanks for putting up with all this sophmoric crap from a bunch of jackals who are relatively older than you.

As you can see, I was doodling in ballpoint today which I actually don't really do much of. Here's a few post warmup scribbles.

Wear Protection

2007-06-10T00:20:00.000-07:00

Hanging out with women is often times far more interesting because they let you know that they're carrying knives.

High Tea

2007-06-09T19:06:00.000-07:00

MOO-HAHAHAHAHAHAA!!! Erica-May and I have created A MONSTER!!!! (Two beautiful individual monsters).

Long Island Fishbowl

2007-06-09T00:15:00.001-07:00

Went on the nowweeklysketchgettogetherthankgoditsfriday- needadrinkbutstillwanttobesortaproductivemaybe today. It could use a catchier name, but maybe not something horribly cheesy or overused like Lead Poet's Society (stolen from Skottie Young), The Fellowship of the Sketch or Sketchfast Club. Actually I like that last one. Sometimes I go to these things and I get more socializing and relaxing done than passable artwork, but sometimes it goes pretty well and i've got something to show:

hammer, snowman, totally gay, high-speed car chase, rock concert

lovelorn, moose, office, gardening, thong

AND

pigsty, lifeguard, Quinn's brain, blasé, leaping

Also, Emmett, Suzanne and Quinn came along for the first time and I have some of Quinn's.

I should note for the squeamish that before Quinn and I showed up, there were a lot of sex organs being drawn. And even a nice fat Prince Albert piercing, or as I fondly refer to it: A !@#$%ING PIECE OF METAL THROUGH YOUR !@#$%ING WOOWOO. I'm pretty sure that should be credited as a group effort. So yeah if you don't like that sort of thing don't click the first one.

Hey, nice use of red, Dudeboss!

100 Bettas (-94)

2007-06-07T19:55:00.000-07:00

meh

I Survived CSS

2007-06-07T00:48:00.000-07:00

I want to have CSS' babies.

The Three Brothers

2007-06-06T13:52:00.000-07:00

I really was!

I like to think a little ahead of my sketches and try to visualize what i'm drawing as a whole and break it down and compartmentalize it. As I practice that, it becomes a little easier to use things like varying line weights because you have an idea of where you're going to apply it. I think it's getting to be second nature of having some organic phatter lines and then tightening up the details with some more precise tips. It works pretty well with some of the figures in my imagination but i'm trying to apply it to things other than people, although I still have a ways to go:

Drawing is my Hot, Hot Sex! (but music is pretty good too)

2007-06-05T18:51:00.001-07:00

There's an off-chance i'll be able to go to the CSS show tomorrow. As i'm not really a concert-goer, I'm kind of overly hyper about it.

Deceptacon!

2007-06-05T18:40:00.000-07:00

I hearts that song so here's some Le Tigre/Bikini Kill frontwoman Kathleen Hanna lovin':

I also wanted to point out that Karen totally did scan in a picture of my new haircut and not only that she even coloured it! RAHHHH!!! Too awesome for words! Anyways it's here, a couple of posts back.

I had a really good time seeing Mandy again over the weekend. I'm really going to miss that girl. I was joking that since she's been gone i've been nearly completely sober. But it's true, now that she's away I need somebody to step up and grasp that baton of inebriation!

The Kill, Kill, Kills!

2007-06-03T15:23:00.000-07:00

Damn, I was just trying to come up with a cool band name. But I guess "The Kills" has already been taken. Fortunately, they're actually pretty awesome. So I guess this is fanart then?

There's alot of photoshop foolery here, but it's fun to play around. Mostly though, i've been starting to concentrate on drawing a lot of inorganic things since I have a habit of drawing mostly human forms.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

2007-06-01T23:47:00.000-07:00

I cut my hair again. I now have the mohawk I always wanted.

Perhaps i'm being self-conscious but the downside is that I find that people give me very dirty glances as I stroll past and are downright suspiciouswhen I enter their establishments. It's a little disappointing in terms of the human spirit since i'm no less of the asshole I was back when I had a few more hairs on the side and a few less up top; they treated me pretty well back then.

On the plus side, i've gotten some ego-stroking out of my ridiculously talented co-workers whom I've forced into producing portraits of yours truly with sweatshop efficiency.

I've never been quite as splendidly cute or pinstripey as Laura has been nice enough to draw out; nor am I as rugged and manly as the other Dan suggests. Karen has drawn one too, ~~whose handsome and charming likeness, she could (of course) not bear to part with mwahahahaha; but she claims she'll scan and send it to me so that it might also reside in this veritable hall of fame.~~ AND IT IS AWESOME!!!

This could be a self-aggrandizing meme: I charge you O people of the world, draw me in all my hair shorn glory!

Oddly enough, while leafing through my sketchbook I came across this ink test I did sometime late last year.

Despite the fact that I wasn't drawing a self-portrait and the crazy goth lips notwithstanding,... I find it strangely prescient.

Anyways I'm crazy and outrageous with excitement since Mandy is coming to visit tomorrow with Diana. I'm a little sad because it'll probably be the last time I see her before she opens up an awesome new chapter of life in the Eire. Also Happy Dave and Maki's Anniversary (oh and also your birthday) to Hallis; sorry I didn't make it out to the pub tonight since i'm mashed from this week but I'm sure you're having a capital time. Hope you manage to be upright and hangover free for ze wedding.

Dino Rider!

2007-05-31T23:12:00.000-07:00

Dear lord, I have got to get more sleep. I've been so damned tired this week.

Until then, here's a picture of a dinosaur:

Dino-Riders was an awesome show that ran at 11am Saturday Morning (right before Saber Rider) on YTV around 1989 or 1990.

My five-year-old self would be shaking his head in dismay at how little i've improved with drawing Allosauruses.

Word!

2007-05-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

It was mentioned that this is something that would look pretty sweet as a wheatpaste, and I would like to agree wholeheartedly except that drew it as a lark and don't really support the message. We were talking one half about the upcoming Olympics and the other about the depressingly consumer culture of Vancouver and then thought it'd be pretty cool to draw a fist going through the Olympic emblem and grasping for some cash. Also, I really just like to say "Word!".

Seriously though, I do have some issues with the Olympics taking place here. People have said things about it being a cash grab, or supporting negative politics, about it advancing the already burgeoning yuppie metastasis of the west coast. I totally agree with that, but not because I have some righteous conviction. I agree with it because I am an angry carmudgeon; . What it boils down to is that I don't want to have it in my backyard. I don't want to have my life bothered by this event and I don't want to deal with the construction and the crowding and blah blah blah. I suspect that most vocal protesters are motivated by the same thing. And that's cool, It's fine to hate on stuff, just own up for being a crank. On the whole, I wish people would be more analytical of their angry political leanings.

Dixie Horns

2007-05-28T22:34:00.000-07:00

Here's one of many scraps from today:

I think the letters in the back are the latter part of "zeitgeist".

Soda Girl

2007-05-24T22:15:00.000-07:00

Karen's mortal enemy is apparently baking soda.

Haven't really had time to do any finishings this week so I threw some silly colours on top but i'm planning a repost on the weekend where i'll tart it all up.

Also, in case you don't know: we'll be at Subeez after work tomorrow for a little drinky and a little drawy; please come out and bring your gang colours.

Rising Goatee

2007-05-23T21:45:00.000-07:00

Emmett may not see the potential in his goatee, but I do.

Pencils and Col-Erase cleaned up in photoshop.

Everybody's Working For The Weekend

2007-05-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

Long weekends are kind of nice. We invented a new sport on thursday night and then Doctor Ed and his girlfriend dropped in for the weekend. I took them on the nooks and crannies tour of the city (chinatown, parks, bookstore, cathedral, granville island et al.) and we went out for all you can eat and korean bbq as a group and I finally saw SPIDERMAN..... two. So I guess i'll catch the new one in a few years or so. Good times, brief and I really wish we had more time, but it was a relief to touch base and it was really neat to finally meet Shannon. I had planned on getting out some more but the weather was shitty so awww... more domestics and NHL campaigning and looking at increasingly crazy internet artists, illustrators and other pencil drawww-ers. It was hell trying to get up this morning but hey I made it and i'm pretty energized for the week.

Thought i'd lost the link, but I found the work of Tomer (and his twin brother Azaf) Hanuka again and between that and looking through James Jean and Kenichi Hoshine's blog, I feel like I need to press even harder onwards with my daily illustration and creative routine. With all the excitement I missed going to this month's Vancouver Comic Jam (thought it looks like Laura and Damon skipped out too, but Kat made it?) which means i'm vowing to check it out in the coming month. I'm finding that I really like meeting new artists and i'm more open to sitting down and drawing with people (instead of scribbling away in a dark corner with my arm covering my sketches) so i'm looking for more and more opportunities. Yes! Drawing consumes my soul! RARRRRRRRR!!!!

Hunger Everlasting

2007-05-22T21:56:00.001-07:00

... they are neighbours
they have come to wake the dead
AAAAAHHH!!!

Necky Wallflower Chestys

2007-05-21T18:56:00.000-07:00

Here's a giraffe in a ~~chestnut~~ walnut:

Creepy Girls

2007-05-16T22:16:00.000-07:00

And one for today...

Usually I get chit chat when people see my sketches, but people tend to stay the hell away from me when I draw creepy underage nude girls. I have a whole huge rant to type out about James Jean but I really need to sleep right now.

Also, I likely won't be posting for the next couple of days because I have some friends coming into town; but ya never know!

Like Worker Ants

2007-05-16T22:14:00.000-07:00

Here's a sketch for yesterday:

We have great posture at work, heh.

Sketch N' Sangria

2007-05-14T19:18:00.000-07:00

Finally made it out for drinks with some of the kids from work last friday. I hadn't really planned on it, but I ended up passing around some sketchbooks and we did some serious pencil jamming which actually made for a really good time.

I'm fixated on how interesting it is to see other people's styles and takes on a subject and being in a "public" environment certainly makes it a lot more interesting that say sitting at home and staring at devart. I'm a big fan of process so here's a the scans of the ones I managed to take home with me hope it's cool with you that i'm blatantly posting your stuff:

We did a series of sketches based on the arbitrary system where we just throw a subject / prop / setting for anyone to choose and then we just mix it into a drawing.

As I recall the first round was just four of us (Karen, Myself, Laura and Jenny (who totally ripped her pages out of my book... dammit updated: Got some of Jenny's back)

Drunken Mouse
Torch
Castle

By the second round, everyone joined in. So we added an "emotion" to the list.

Peregrine Falcon (mwahaha, I knew exactly what that looked like
Gassing
Pragmatic
Pineapple
Rooftop

3rd.
Spider
Beachball
Karaoke
Dissatisfied
Mushroom Patch

There you have it. There was one more, but I think the sangria was starting to kick in so i'm pretty much too ashamed to post it. I'll try to get everyone who was involved to send me scans next time.

Also, i'm going to cheat and count this as a tonight's; but I liked posting new stuff up every night last week (even though I totally crashed a few nights) so i'm going to keep trying to do that this week.

Forecast: Heavy Metal Shower

2007-05-13T19:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a makeup post for friday. I tarted it up because I felt bad, so consider the colours an e-card with a little teddy bear that says "I'm beary beary sorry".

The other day, I was talking about horrible horrible Cantopop and how it was a venue in which the spirit (and simplistic chord structure) of the Heavy Metal Ballad (tm) lives on. There are random english words that are belted out -for what I assume is "effect"- during the choruses and even verses of these pop opuses. Later on in the shower, I composed my own Asian November Rain. I can hardly speak Cantonese, much less write but suffice it to be known that my chorus is anchored around the following words:

So Fast
So Power
... I Feel the SHOWER

Yep, you white kids are really missing out. The picture I drew represents my inner self.

Slaughterhouse Two

2007-05-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

I totally missed posting yesterday, but in lieu I did sleep more than seven hours for the first time in two weeks which was extremely gratifying.

Tonight I almost missed posting too, on account that we just bought TWELVE POUNDS worth of beef. After furious chopping and bagging away with Joey for the last two hours or so, I feel like those guys from Three Kings after they experience the cow walking on a land mine. However, in case there was any concern over whether this kind of ersatz hardship has swayed my ardour, I present tonight's sketch which paraphrases the last sentence of this blog entry.

The Four Deidras

2007-05-08T21:17:00.000-07:00

Today's sketch:

Also, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of sketch tavern sessions. Hanging out with a bunch of art nerds and drawing away from home would be hella fun and also pretty damned constructive.

Roomate Defamation (Episode Three)

2007-05-07T22:21:00.000-07:00

Dear Roomate,

I must make it clear that when we are surfing for pictures of "hot chicks" on the internet (or any other device for that matter), that it is absolutely not acceptable that you become distracted and click on a picture of acclaimed film actor Eric Bana no matter how scantily clad or oiled he may appear to be.

Furthermore, it is DEFINITELY NOT comfortable for myself or even your absentee girlfriend, when you murmur "mmm..." and press your fingers to your lips as you look at aforementioned picture.

I trust this finds you in good faith.

Sincerely,
- Roomate

ps.

Other quote of the day:

Roomate: "Sometimes I spoon people for fun... That's a nice song title, hey?"

KO'ed

2007-05-07T22:12:00.000-07:00

Here's today's sketch. I actually drew this last week while I was waiting for the workstation to finish crashing and listening to Karen O shouting encouragement.

I was explaining the nineties concept of Monet to Joe the other day, and I think "hot from far, far from hot" is pretty apt for this one; when I made this up two of my friends asked for copies so we stuck it on the copier at work and man did the copies look like crap. There was a pretty awkward moment where they were trying to be really polite but trying to figure out when they could throw them away... hahaha, human weakness. Anyways, I'm not particularly happy with it, but there's some cool ideas bubbling underneath.

Also judging by tonight, I'm gonna have to step it up in order to get a sketch up every night but I'm up for the challenge.

Betta Rider

2007-05-06T21:24:00.000-07:00

Sat down; did some drawinz.

I need to do a sketch dump sometime since there's a lot of stuff sitting around and I don't really want to watch a blog die a horrible death because of work hours =). I think i'll try to scan and post one every night this week.

Other than that, I don't really have much to say: my brain is completely fried from watching an absolutely inane Hong Kong film. Oh Joey, why do you have to insist on picking out the worst films for our meals?

God Of Gamblers Returns! (Again)

2007-05-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

I swear, Chow Yun-Fat is so damned cool until he opens his mouth. Bonus squee?: Caucasian fetish object is none other than America's Next Top Model runner-runner-up, resident-Shins-keyboardist-girlfriend and erstwhile livejournal blogger; ELYSE SEWELL!.

I Heart Bessy

2007-04-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

I love cows. I've had a myriad of conversations with fellow refugees about how growing up in the wintry climes of Alberta, you are literally bred to eat cattle. I remember how we were taught in the formitive stages of grade two, that drinking six glasses of milk a day was not only a healthy standard, but the bare minimum of required calcium consumption. We also received "points" of unsubstantiated value that we could only imagine affected our academic perfomance, for each dairy product that we consumed. I've only recently realized that beef is possibly not the healthiest meat out there -as was taught to me-, and that realization is only half-hearted, like how you know that Optimus Prime is nor real but you totally believe he is. In short, it's amazing how a little funding from the Dairy and Livestock Farmers Associations can go a long way. Mad-Cows beware! I am hiding in the tall grass, waiting to rush out and devour you whole!

Le SIDA

2007-04-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

Whoa, these French AIDS warning posters are crazy. I really gotta stop picking up scorpions at the café.

Sunday

2007-04-22T14:23:00.000-07:00

Ah! Domestics. I sometimes wonder if we clean because we actually like cleanliness or we just do it to feel morally superior to the guys we know. Either way, it feels nice.

My body feels pretty beat up today; we went and played tennis with Chung for three hours yesterday and that on top of some of the other things has me grimacing at the slightest of body contortions. Those other things? Well, the new job has been going pretty well and then in the second week I was offered a chance to train as a compositor, which is a much wider field, and I jumped at it. The first few days were pretty wide-eyed and insane, but i'm getting a handle on it and things can only get better. The biggest adjustment has actually been the side-effect of working for a different crew, which is that i'm now working dayshift and getting up at around 5:30AM every day. Contrary to my expectations, the change hasn't been awful and the hardest part is probably just getting to bed early enough to get a decent amount of sleep (ie. hopefully before 10). What I was surprised by is how much more oomph now that i'm not some kind of nocturnal rodent fellow. I feel pretty much restless any time I hit offhours and i'm always aching to get outside and do something before I have to shutdown for the early, early night. Consequently i've been playing ping pong, badminton, skateboarding, doing exercises in the morning, and doing every chore imaginable. It's been pretty packed so i'm quite pleased that today's soreness has been the only indication of my body's mutiny and inevitable breakdown.

Getting back to the job, it's weird to feel so concentrated on something when I've been putting out at various temp, kitchen and construction jobs for such a long time. I worked really hard at all those jobs but it feels like i'm hitting so much harder at this one. I'm almost fanatical in wanting to learn the software and the nuances of the project and haven't been this motivated for anything in a good long while. A huge part of it, is that I really like what i'm doing. It's like finally taking a bite out of the carrot that's been dangling in front of that massive treadmill of entry-level work i've been running. But also I think there's an added edge from the acknowledgement of age. Looking around at some of the kids in the building: fresh faced art and animation school grads, I have this sense that I feel just a bit more desperate. There's a bit of a lunatic glint in my eyes. When you idle in neutral for such a long time, you're ready to go. And me, i'm ready to kick some serious ass.

Feisty! Hurr Hurr Hurr

2007-04-13T01:53:00.000-07:00

Wow, I guess I can just totally try to plump my indie rock cred by posting this up before most people do. Or do I lose all my points for just pointing that out? Is Feist totally not cool now? Wait, am I supposed to post stuff that I don't like? Dammit, indie rock is so confusing! Anyways, there's a new video from her new album. "1234" and directed by Patrick Daughters who I rather like.

I'd be a little hesitant to put this up because while Feist has a gorgeous voice, serious music chops, is from my hood (and is also is retardedly hot); her last album felt really more like a sampler than anything... The songs were kind of all over the place and I got the feeling that -while some tracks were really amazing- it was more of an experiment and maybe not even her experiment but rather that of her collaborators. But Feist has the best voice since Cat Power and though it's probably taboo, i'm just gonna call it: writes way better songs than Cat Power. Judging from this track i'm going to enjoy the new album, it sounds like a female fronted Sufjan Stevens composition, which is pretty much exactly what i'm looking for (there's a rant I need to write about that). Plus, the meticulously chereography just looks like ridiculous fun.

I am also wondering if anyone wants to hit the May 15th Feist show at the Orpheum on the odd chance there are still tickets left? Hallis, Erica-May, Jenny i'm looking at you guys. I'm going on day shift as of next week so I can go! but i'm needy and it's kind of weird to go alone. Be there to break my concert virginity! That was really creepy. I'm going to go to sleep now. FEIST FTW!!!

Rear Window

2007-04-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

Outside the window where I work there's this huge advertisement on the side of an apartment building. So essentially when my eyes glaze over from monitoring focus, i'm staring blankly at this massive picture of a male model and he's looking back at me with his boudoir eyes. It's vaguely homoerotic and all kinds of creepy.

Fran Healy is my Homeboy

2007-04-12T12:36:00.000-07:00

Yay! Just when I was starting to contemplate another long summer of melodramatic late night walks, my buddy Travis returns:

The First Rule

2007-04-12T02:07:00.000-07:00

Hey Sis, Good News! I'm totally backing you up, I weigh 148 pounds now! We are so totally starting a fat club when you get back!

Vibrant Social Life

2007-04-11T05:05:00.000-07:00

Oh man, it's a good thing I don't have any side gigs going on at the moment because I've spent the last two nights awake at godforsaken hours devouring the archives of Questionable Content. It reminds me so much of my ex, and yet I can't stop laughing. Webcomics are so awesome, but I don't think I read anything regularly except Penny Arcade anymore. I remember when I was really crazy about them and I even started working on one: Yes, predictably in my university years (probably around final exam time); it was manga-influenced and I even had a blog and forum to go with it. I think I got up to page eight before I realized that this was horribly time consuming and that I was just a mindless conformist and total famewhore. BONUS LIFE!!! BLEAARGH, I vomit with embarassment at another proud moment of my misspent youth.

Anyways, I must go to bed... or maybe read another 50 strips. Haha, i'm barely getting enough sleep to make it to work!

Thank God It's Over?

2007-04-08T23:02:00.000-07:00

Well the NHL regular season ended on a moderately pleasant note. The Islanders managed to sneak into the playoffs (sans their 67.5 million concussioned goalie) and in the process also managed to knock out the Leafs. I should mention that both the Isles' goals were scored by Richard Park who is pretty much one half of my All-Asian NHL team (the Japanese halves of Paul "Mighty Mouse" Kariya and David Tanabe combine to make the other guy, did I miss anyone?). Rad! Dreamy Emo Norse God THOR-esen (pictured) also managed to score the gamewinner in Edmonton's last game against hated nemesis Calgary, thus snapping our losing streak of a gajillion games and bringing our record to two wins and one point picked up from overtime loss in the... twenty? games since Smytty (bless him) was traded. Screw you K-Lowe! Many Edmonton fans will be raging that we didn't manage to also drag the Flames out of the playoff race with our concentrated suckage, being that we did manage to beat them but our only other win was enough to cost Colorado's chance to leap them, but i'm cool with that; i'd much rather see Edmonton natives Iginla, Langkow and Phaneuf on the ice than yet another Avalanche playoff run.

So onto the playoffs: It's rad that I have a Ryan Smyth team to cheer on for... well the one round they'll play before they are obliterated by the Sabres. I wasn't really expecting the Isles' to make it even this far so my backup plan for the east was to cheer for whoever wins the Ottawa/Pittsburgh series which is going to be totally crazy. Here's hoping the Sens don't completely collapse in the postseason again. In the west it's a bit more muddled, I liked the little-train-that-could Predators up until they added Forsberg at the expense of Upshall and became a ridiculous juggernaut so barring them I really don't like any of the teams arrayed for the Campbell Cup. What I do know is that Vancouver is going to be pretty much unbearable for the week before they get blasted out of the playoffs. The Canucks are actually a pretty likeable built from the net out team this year, but they're still the 'Nucks and I still have to put with their bullshit fans as I walk to and from work everyday.

Anyways, what i'm most interested in at this point is what the Oiler's are going to do with their fantastic draft pick. We seemed to have really worked for it, finishing a stellar fifth worst in the league and before the final game we had actually sunk to fourth. I couldn't get behind the idea of sucking for the sake of the draft because I have too much love and pride for the Oil, but now that it's done i've been chatting with Lawrence about high-end prospects like Cherapanov, Van Riemsdyck and Patrick Kane. Under the newly implemented draft lottery system, we apparently have a shot at the first overall pick and Lawrence definitely wants the team to pick up Cherapanov, but i'm thinking that with all the prospects in the system I wouldn't mind flipping the pick for someone who could actually help what is probably the currently worse team in the NHL: a star player for the next year. What do you think?

Oh Edmonton, I will always cheer for you; but boy, are we ever in a hole. Time to look across the ocean and watch the UEFA Champions League heat up. Go Liverpool!

The Debauchery Did NOT Stop With My Week Off

2007-04-07T02:07:00.000-07:00

Well, hell me and sangria are dippin' again.

I think we're having an NHL tourney at our place tomorrow. Remember to BYOB (and then bring one for me).

Vagrancy Day Seven

2007-03-31T01:32:00.000-07:00

Chinatown, barbeque ducks, steamed buns and mango pudding; How i've missed you!

A Message For Our Viewers

2007-03-29T02:37:00.000-07:00

I've got my internet disconnected so I can pursue, well, life: so there's going to be a ton of random posts being backlogged.

Agh, anachronisms abound!

Vagrancy Day 5: I'm A Sketch-Crazy Big Flaky Pansy Downtown Girl

2007-03-29T02:28:00.000-07:00

The day started off with a nasty oversleep and generally crabbiness
but unwound into something resembling the word "awesome".

When I finally made it out of my house (and my head). I got to stalking haphazardly around downtown, sketchbook in hand like a cocked arrow.

Stopped in a plaza to sketch.

Stopped in a cathedral to sketch.

Stopped in the crazy neverland bookstore, no room to sketch.

Stopped in a mall to sketch.

Stopped at a busy intersection to sketch.

I've actually learned some stuff from sketching all over the place, and that's: when you've been sitting cross legged on concrete for long stretches sketching and you get up, make sure you're close enough to some kind of railing or seating for when your legs collapse from the pins and needles. Generally, it'll take a long time for your legs to go back to normal, more specifically expect your limbs to be useless and unbearable for 1/3 of the time that you were seated. I once had to crawl with my hands across an entire Banff parking lot in order to find somewhere to hide from the gawping public and punch the feeling back into my leg with impunity. I love drawing.

Also met up with Alex and Lawrence who kindly offered teach me (read: kick my ass) in squash.

Being that the only thing i've done in the past ten months even resembling a sport is Xbox Hockey, I played the only way I knew how: Drive to the net hard and take the body. Subsequently, I'm missing a ton of skin on my right arm, I have a massive welt on my knee and I had one particularly nasty but intimate encouter with the wall of the court. Now I know exactly how Koivu feels everytime he gets piledriven into the boards. It's gonna be really hard to get up/brush teeth/walk tomorrow. Fortunately my head, neck and shoulder blade took the brunt of the damage. My drawing hand is relatively swell except for a small burn. Yay!

My arm:

I really like friction burns. I got in the shower tonight and I started screaming.

Anyways i'm absolutely looking towards playing some more, just probably not in the next few days.

Also I got a call from an ex-coworker in which I was called a "Big Flaky Girl". Thanks Paula.

Man, especially after the Herzog exhibit I totally forgot how much I love downtown, especially it's seedy 'tween side sandwiched between the all out squalor of Hastings/Chinatown and the super-impersonal financial district. Now, to figure out how i'm going to go and be sacrilegous in the cathedral on a more regular basis.

Vagrancy Day Four: Perpetual Raptures

2007-03-28T02:39:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't know, the Vancouver Art Gallery's admission by donation night's been moved to tuesdays (formerly thursdays). So naturally, on the only tuesday night that I am free this year I went down with Joey and Erica-May. I was particularly excited to go because the main exhibit was Fred Herzog. He's a local photographer that's been taking pictures of downtown Vancouver since the 50's. From what I read, I gather that he did most of his work in Kodakchrome -which captures a much higher spectrum of colour than the traditional film stocks of the past-; as a result, the massive prints are really vibrant and don't have the dated looks of my dad's photos from the 70's. Were it not for the jaunty signs and chrome cars of cultural difference, you could be looking at a photo that was taken this morning.

Walking from photo to photo, a couple of things really struck me:

Where the hell did all the colours go. We've forgone the lively palettes of hand painted wooden signs and buttressed neon signage for the muted quiet of steel and glass? What the hell? When in the last fifty years did we decide that we wanted to look like an Orwell novel? And more importantly why?

Everyone looked so cool for the camera in the 50's. Miscellaneous passerbys are all lounged out effortlessly and exuding far more attitude than the 21st century yaletowner as he runs despondedly to the nearest chain store. And the hats! Every guy on the street is dapped out in his finery. Everyday is a sunday.

What made me the happiest was just being to spot some little token in each picture: a building, a street sign, the tiling on a storefront; that gave away to me the location of the photo as a placed that I would have walked through. I spent a lot of time walking through the city, especially in my worst years, and for awhile I did feel that it was "my only friend". Things have changed and are changing. Buildings go from bustling to abandoned, to a hole in the ground and then spring back up again; and each time I long for what came before. It's cool to see the city given at least a moment of permanence within these photographs.

I did hear that I passed up the chance to see either Apples in Stereo or Badly Drawn Boy tonight. I can't say I mind to much; riding home over Cambie Bridge I looked out the window at the floating lights of all the towers and realized that I'm still pretty giddy: a country boy living in the big city.

La Belle Provence

2007-03-27T14:46:00.000-07:00

Steph -my sister- has been chilling out in La France (pronounced the redneck way) for a little over half a year now. Notably, this has meant a decreased rate of dance-offs, dude outs, high fives and just plain freestyle battling in my life. However, i've recently started thinking about maybe how her life might have been affected as well:

Haha, i'm ridiculously jealous of your enforced diet of butter-rich foods. But I miss you like crazy and can't wait until you come back.

Love, Your Bro.

Vagrancy: Day One - Momo and Karaoke

2007-03-25T02:58:00.000-07:00

Yep, officially vagrant as of 9:30 friday night. Enjoying immensely: I duded out today for a bit and have just been out in a hoodie and basically pajama pants all day.

Happy Birthday Momo!

Haven't had steak in ages, am still totally cool with savagely slaughtering cows for consumption.

Finally made it to Karaoke and in between Guns N' Roses and beer, have completely expunged any vestigial desire to sing. Am thoroughly satisfied although my throat feels like sawed up lumber.

Met this one bloke who reminds me of Iggy Pop or at least Ewan's impression of him in Velvet Goldmine; I find people who are single-minded personalities compelling but I wonder how they can exist in the non-fiction world.

I can fuckin' sing!

Also, I just don't find the idea of leering at girls, in a pub, and throughly drunk; appealing at all. (Haha, apparently sober's totally fine though). Is that normal?

And through it all, all I could think of was sketching which totally bodes well for the coming week. Drawing, you are the only bride for me!

The Incledibles

2007-03-25T02:42:00.000-07:00

This is really awesome. Almost as awesome as the one that teaches you to deal with rapists.

Although I guess it's not life alteringly awesome, except when they ask for my air miles card at the supermarket i'll scream "INCULEHDIDAISO!" as I do the arm thing.

Innuendo?

2007-03-23T17:03:00.000-07:00

Oh my Stars and Garters! What were they thinking?

Top 15 Unintentional Funny Comic Book Panels

I think Mawna or Shandy might have posted it before, but the last one (with Batman) is hilarious.

Jacqueline

2007-03-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

I finish work on friday, which means I have a week of vagrancy coming up. Needless to say, i'm extremely excited about the prospect of stomping around town and sketching in the familiar places of yesteryear. I have a million things I want to do in those days and a few days are already filled in, but let me know if you want to hang!

Swimsuit Girl

2007-03-21T14:42:00.000-07:00

Here's an image I drew up as kind of a followup to the thoughts of this post.

I keep forgetting about how much legwork it is to get nice linework with a tablet. I draw really "sketchily" so I think every line in here is composed with a hundred strokes and erases. Hell, i'm better with even brushes than I am with this thing but I have to admit that (when all is said and done) digital work is infinitely cleaner. Anyways, here's hoping that it gets a little easier over time.

Drowning In A Sea of Jenny

2007-03-18T00:41:00.000-07:00

Had an excellent tea fueled sketch today with the ridiculously talented Jenny. I've been conscripting her to do that sketch thing where we combine one person's random subject (person/thing/organic fooblebooble) with the other's random setting. Having spent most of last night staring at art blogs (instead of drawing, ;( *slice wrists*), I really tried to raise my game and make something I would at least post up, so here's my entry:

This combination was: Little Girl + Cherry Blossoms. I think Jenny made some stipulations that the girl was to be "white", around 10 years old and with "big hair". She also overruled my inclination that the "big hair" could be an afro. Damn, Jenny why are you such a hater? Anyways, I think somehow managed to screw up because this girl looks like she has the soul of a 78-year old, specifically Marlene Dietrich. As I put it ever so delicately to Jenny, the kid has "sultry, sultry eyes", and believe me i've seen my share of sultry 10 year-old girls.

I totally forgot to set a time limit for this one, so we took our sweet time, but i'm pretty happy that this turned out in about twenty minutes, inks and all. We made another one with a five-pushed-to-seven minute limite and mine was decidedly less cool. The colours were added in post, though it would have been cooler if I had brought a pink hi-liter.

Jenny always manages to blow me away with her stuff. We have completely different styles of drawing: whereas my brain rarely allows me to draw anything that isn't chained by physical properties or at least a perceived environment, her stuff seems -to me at least- to be amorphous and freely floating on some other-worldly plane.

We've collaborated in the past on a few things, but never directly drawn a picture together and since then, I also think we've gotten alot better so i'm really riding her to gimme some free swag art that I can play around with. We did a quick one today passing a piece of paper back and forth:

I always imagined a drawing collab as one of my paranoid looking figures drowning in the sea of her imagination, so I guess this is pretty damned literal. She plopped down the bottom "fountain" first and I plopped on swimming dude and she finished it off with the "tentacles". Or at least that's what I'm calling them, they probably have names in her brain.

So yeah, i'm brainstorming a collaboration project that will involve her; because as Mandy knows, nothing motivates like another artist breathing down your neck asking you for pages. The idea is still kind of cookie dough at this point, but I promises you that it'll be pretty damned cool. More importantly, i'm thinking that this could involve more than a few artists, this probably means you: Hallis and Mandy. I'll come bothering you all soon.

Really Early Saturday Morning Cartoons

2007-03-17T02:33:00.000-07:00

This is some stuff by Skottie Young. I'm really getting into the cartoony-style of drawing and I completely blame my friends; 85% percent of whom are currently the animation industry. It's not a style that comes naturally to me at all and i've always gravitated towards more "realistic" style characters that are too micro-detail oriented.

Newsarama had an article about the re-designs of the New X-Men characters and it totally caught my eye. I remember liking the look of that brief pre-Civil War run of New Warriors art, so I am pretty stoked to find out that it's the same guy. This coloursheet is a pretty good example of what I love about this style: I really like how consistent the characters look and how the proportions and the details are all in sync with the style. The emotions and attitudes are definitely exaggerated beyond what could be found in a photoreal drawing, but it totally works. Hellion looks really exudes his cool and jerk-ness while the beast boy looks really friendly and playful. Plus, I'm probably in the minority here (at least for people above the age of 14) but I love me some underaged X-23, and I loved Josh Middleton's gothy take on her, so it's cool to see that look showing up again. And frankly, these characters just look really fun and young, something I didn't feel at all from the previous artist.

They must never -ever- see the light of day, but you can bet I did some "copying" sketches off of these character sheets. While mostly for giggles (more like cries of frustrated rage), it's actually really interesting for me to try to break foreign styles down into undestandeable components and then come up with a half-assed system for drawing them. New things come to me, because it's such a different angle of approach to drawing. I found that just by seeing how the guy draws his figures and musclature, i've come up with a few tricks that I can use to fix up some of grey areas I see in my own drawings.

Anyways, too much blogging and not enough drawing! I'm out.

Fear Your Future!

2007-03-15T17:28:00.000-07:00

This doodle was a funny idea.

*Sigh*, it's a weird time being in your twenties.

Haha, somebody in our building just set off their smoke alarm. That was so me last month, so I laugh at their ineptitude. Unless of course I am later burned to a flaky crisp, never to set foot outside this fiery tomb of a room again. Then i'm not really laughing.

In other news, I seem to be turning into one of those pretentious art kids who doesn't crop their scans so you can see that they own a !@#$ing Moleskine. I assure you all is not lost: it's a knockoff.

Skipping Tracks

2007-03-15T02:53:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling a little out of it all day. I feel really good personally, but something has just not been syncing with the world at large; like everyone's marching along in 3/4 time and i'm tapping frenetically in 5/8 (which is a pretty screwed up
time signature to begin with). Maybe I woke up a couple of minutes off of reality today, i'll have to try to avoid that tomorrow.

It also occurs to me that they really need to make Ipod's (or equivalents) that will sync together. I mean when you're out, earbuds on, and grooving to a bassline; it looks really stupid without the music. How awesome would it be to listen to the same songs together so that everyone gets the same stupid-ass grins when it hits the really sweet parts!

When Two Worlds Collide

2007-03-13T23:46:00.000-07:00

My baptism (by fire) of the roomate into the Great Northern obsession of NHL 07 has not been without it's quirks. At the mo' our home-team is named after the Taiwanese colloquial for "balls", and i'm not talking about the basketball or soccer variety; i'm talking about nethers.

I can sort of understand that since the man doesn't have the inbred Canadian devotion (fanatical!) to hockey heroes (I heart Gordie! Gretzky! Yzerman! Orr! Smytty!) he might not be totally captivated by the game, especially since they're all random names skating in front of him; so with that in mind, it was only logical that he would want to create a team composed with the familiar faces of our friends and co-workers. That's cool, I feel the same way when I play rpgs, usually renaming most of the main characters and pissing off those hardcore fans. It's the liberties, however, of his fanciful fairy-ish nature that has me concerned. While i'm mostly okay with us creating Piotr Colossus, a 7'0", 250-pound, granite-jawed defenceman (Mandy would approve); I don't really see why we need to add Taiwanese model/actor/rapper/douchebag extraordinaire, Jay Chou to our stable of forwards.

Although they're a ridiculously fun team to play in the way that it's embarassingly hilarious watching your hand-created friends interact in The Sims; I live in constant fear that I will arrive home from work one day, fire up the xbox and discover that Jamie Foxx is my line-mate.

Broken Pencils

2007-03-13T01:49:00.000-07:00

Haven't really felt like i've done enough drawing ~~in the last few days~~ ever. Joey's been kind enough to point out to me that I pretty much spend all my time drawing and that I draw much more than an average person (read: healthy, functional person), but I never really feel that way.

It's hard to see any kind of progress with this stuff. Objectivity is kind of at a premium here, I remember liking a few pictures as I was drawing them but I can't look through my portfolios and galleries without a complete feeling of disgust and embarassment. This makes it a little difficult to go and dissect past works(not to mention the practical crutch created by never ever promoting my portfolio to anyone. Still, I think there's been a general improvement over the past maybe even half a year on my figure drawing and their fluidity, which is something that I know i've been smashing my head on repeatedly. There's a ways to go: my heads and bodies still feel really disconnected, the joints are still kind of lackadaisacal and I definitely need to get leg shapes down; but these are some recent sketches from my head:

For Monika

2007-03-12T17:33:00.001-07:00

http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF213-Mario_Too.jpg#201

Where Do I Get Me Some Of 'Dem Shirts?

2007-03-11T01:10:00.000-08:00

Do you also listen to Grime?

I blame my Summer 2005 lovefest with Mike Skinner (aka. The Streets) for my interest in this British subgenre, and there's some pretty kickass stuff there from Skinner and his stable to M.I.A., Dizzee Rascal and maybe even the super-hyped (but pretty catchy) Lily Allen. However, I'm still kind of on the fence with Lady Sovereign. While I have to admit that she's kind of at the public forefront of this dance train, I can't decide whether she's just some tarted up pop midget or the "real deal" -whatever that is. Her early demos showed glimpses of awesomeness but were definitely too raw to be any kind of dealbreaker. I don't know if you find her annoying or not but she's got attitude in droves and -to my ears- her delivery among MC's is second to none. However, she's also guilty of being far more style than substance and doesn't seem like she has much of anything to say instead sticking to name checking herself and making "ch-ching" noises to fill verses. So far she's had some novelty tracks like "Hoodie" and "Random" but seems only at her best when she's pissing on other's people songs ("Sad Ass Strippah") or doing collabs with other artists (Her stint with Brit indy band, Ordinary Boys). Anyways, i've been following her North American release with some interest since she's attracted the promoting interests of hip-hop moguls, not the least of which was Jay-Z; It's probably sacrilegious to actual rap fans, but I always figured she'd be really huge here if she got a few decent producers and songwriters. Though the first couple of singles were just "meh", I'm really liking her latest release here:

The track really plays to her strengths by having a great laidback groove that lets her breakdown her usually frenetic verses to a listenable pace and to boot it's got a great chorus hook. The video also has a lot to do with it, for me. Photo booths and bringing back Kathleen Hamnett style T-shirts? Pure Love.

Enforcer Dreams

2007-03-10T12:35:00.000-08:00

I had this dream that i'm sitting on a cruise ship waiting for a meal to be served when George Laraques barges into the room -in full gear- and starts duking it out with both Jarome Iginla and Craig Conroy. I understand that it's some kind of "friendly" but they're really getting into it. At some point I yell out to Laraques "Go Oilers!", but he just shoots me this incredulous glance and goes back to his thing; even though he's wearing his Oilers duds. Also I was being slowly incapicitated on this boat by sleeping pills that Paula kept feeding me, whom -in the real world- would phone me in the morning to wake me up and go dog-walking.

Training Day

2007-03-10T01:25:00.000-08:00

Having to train people, especially people who are going to be your replacements, is such a surreal task.

First of all, why are they asking you to do this. What's your motivation, maaan? I mean you're leaving anyways, right?

And then there's the matter of technique. Do you tell them what they want you to tell them or do you tell them how the job really is?. Do you show them the ropes or just use them to do all your work for you? Do you make them great? And if you do, do you make yourself look errant and slothful in retrospect? Or do you try to knock 'em down and punch 'em in the gut before they take their first lap?...

Do you make them your clones? Your disciples? Teach them all your little tricks and ticks so that they wear your face on their T-shirt and become your "Sons of Batman"?

Do you just give them the quickie tour, leaving them to flounder in uncertainty and clumsiness like you did when you first started? Do you not tell them where the washrooms are or that you can take breaks. Do you turn them into workaholics and alcoholics with the thousand-yard-stare deathmarch mindset?

And then there's the sinister voice in your brain that tells you to totally lead them astray. Utterly. To create in them a time bomb that will explode long after you're gone. To stick it to the institution and take them out in the giant, untraceable blaze of your legacy. To leave nothing but a pile of whimpering flesh and tears with a "Hello My Name Is" badge slowly peeling off.

These are things you have to decide, but then you find out that your replacement listens to the same awesome music that you do; and so you just want to be friends.

Impulses that will probably Kill Me.

2007-03-09T14:06:00.000-08:00

(or get me killed)

1. High Ledges -> Jumping off of
2. Small Dogs -> Punting
3. People in Elevators -> Starting inane conversations
4. Babies -> Punching
5. People in Elevators -> Mooning
6. Anyone above 6'2, 200 lbs -> Sucker punching in the jaw
7. Sharp Objects -> Ninja Stuff
8. Attractive Girls -> Pushing out of oncoming traffic
9. Elderly -> Pushing into oncoming traffic
10. People in Elevators -> Farting

Alpha Flight Depth Chart

2007-03-07T00:32:00.000-08:00

Hockey and Comics combines for Ultimate Geekery! We were at Steeps again, Hallis "Nite-Owl I" Fray and I, chatting about the connection between Canada's Premier Superteam = Team Canada and Canada's other premier superteam = Alpha Flight!!! Hallis suggested some lines that I liked but, at the time, I couldn't remember enough role players to fill up the checking lines let alone the defence. So after a quick roll through the alphanex, here are your Stanley Cup contenders: The 2006-2007 Alpha Flights!

Forwards

Puck	Guardian (C)	Vindicator
Northstar	Aurora	Puck
Yukon Jack	Major Mapleleaf (A)	Snowbird
Wildchild	Nemesis	Puck II

Defense

Shaman	Sasquatch (A)
Diamond 'Lil	Box (M. Jefferies)
Talisman	Manbot

Let's breakdown the lines from top to bottom:

1st Line
In Guardian (James "Mac" Hudson) we have the quintessential captain-center ala Sakic, Yzerman, Captain America, Koivu, Sundin pedigree. Vindicator (Heather MacNeil/Hudson) is like a doppelganger to Guardian but with more speed vs. less power, it's tempting to place her in a similar position on another line, but it's also impossible to deny the allure of having the two star players on the same line: they have natural chemistry and she fits the profile of an elite winger. Rounding it out Puck (Eugene Jodd) brings grit and energy to this star line, originally a position filled by X-buyout Wolverine (he's everywhere) Puck is a natural fit for the comparables: he'll be the one delivering the hits and driving hard to the net for the rebounds and deflections. On the blueline we have two more powerhouses: Sasquatch (Walter Langkowski) is the physical presence and will control the corners as well as clear the front of the crease with his dominating checks yet smart play. Shaman (Dr. Michael Twoyoungmen) on the other hand will strip the opposing players with his skillful stickwork and has the skills to set plays in motion with his breakout passing and immaculate puck control. Very solid star line.

2nd Line
The second line is speed, speed and a touch of grit. To seperate the Beaubier twins would be to severly limit their potential so the line uses their sibling chemistry and telepathic passes and lightning speed to overwhelm and terrorize opposing defenses. Jean-Paul seems like more of the natural winger with Jean-Marie more of the spiritual center and playmaker. Keeping guard is once again Puck (Jean-Puck?) reprising his position from the first line, his durability allows him to log the hard extra minutes, his toughness keeps the opposition from taking undue shots on the twins and his compact frame allows him to keep pace with the speedy siblings. In the defensive zone, a stay-at-home oriented pair keeps the guard with the forward trio often out of sight. Box IV ( Madison Jefferies) provides a combination of steady puck control and zone enforcement while Diamond 'Lil (Lillian Crawley-Jefferies) adds a hint of aggression while remaining a somewhat stalwart defensive presence. An extremely skilled line, the elite pairing of the Beaubier's would be first line on any lesser team.

3rd Line
Our checking line is a strong combination of muscle and two-way play: Major Mapleleaf (Louis Sadler Jr.) is a skilled and responsible locker room leader who can be counted on to create scoring opportunites without sacrificing defensive lapses in the Peca/Linden/Storm mode. Yukon Jack (name unpronounceable) brings grit and strength on the forecheck and despite his often difficult nature, should lead the line in hits and penalty minutes as the enforcer, Snowbird (Narya/Anne Mackenzie) will be a more subtle but still stifling presence with her ability to adjust to the opposition and a high degree of skill and puck control. Our six and seven defenders will curtail the easy minutes, Manbot has a very similar developing skillset to Box and should do nicely and if the younger Twoyoungmen, Talisman (Elizabeth Twoyoungmen), develops into even a partial comp to Shaman she'll be projected as a top 4 defenceman. A strong forechecking line to shutout opposing scoring lines.

4th Line
Like the final defensive line, the 4th line is a kids and junior version line featuring callups from the AHL affilates of Beta Flight and Gamma Flight. Injury/death prone Nemesis brings a nice bit of skill and toughness and the strongest experience of the three and in the event of her likely absence, can be replaced by the aging Centennial (Rutherford Princeton) who would be an excellent guiding hand for the rookies. You could make the case to interchange with any other AHL callups but I picked the younger Puck (Zuzha Yu) and Wildchild (Kyle Gibney - pending a trade to the Weapon X team) for their toughness and checking which should compliment Nemesis nicely during the stray minutes. The playmaking skills of Ghost Girl especially deserve a mention as she'll be pushing for a place in the big leagues and only her defensive frailtys preclude her from an automatic spot in the roster.

Special Teams
Powerplay is where I go with Hallis' opinion that Guardian should be paired up with the Beaubiers on wing. So the stellar first unit would be Aurora/Guardian/Northstar with Shaman and Puck providing the D, Second unit would be Nemesis/Vindicator/Snowbird with a backup pairing of Box and Talisman; it's a weaker line than I'd like but the absence of offensive specialists allows the right wing position to be open to anyone on a streak or a promising skilled rookie (Ghost Girl/Persuasion etc.).
On the PK, I'd go with a first unit of Puck/Major Mapleleaf and Vindicator to create havoc with breakaways. I'd keep my defensive lines intact for this one (Shaman/Sasquatch). Second unit would be an equally strong line of Yukon Jack/Guardian/Northstar with either a Box/Lil, Box/Talisman or all bot Box/Manbot combo. No one's going to get the easy goals on this team.
Shootout lineup would probably vary according to hot streaks, but a tentative order would have: Northstar/Guardian/Vindicator/Aurora/Snowbird.

Anyways due to sheer numbers, team Alpha Flight is somewhat of an underdog in a league that includes the Avengers, the X-Men and that dirty hitting Brotherhood of Evil Mutants; but due to their unique combination of skill and heart as well as their Northern pedigree, you can count on Alpha Flight to go deep into the playoffs.

Passing The Torch

2007-03-06T01:05:00.000-08:00

My dear Joey finally beat me at NHL 07 today. I'm no longer using my own team, but I feel that it was a tight game: garbage and skill goals were evenly distributed, strong skating and stringent defense in the first, a pair of morale shattering goals in the second, a reply goal in the third only for us to trade back and forth as he tried to hold onto the lead; and then an extremely tight finish with my guys crowding the zone with shot after shot eventually even pulling a hail mary along with our goalie and doing everything but putting in that crucial tying goal. In other words: I feel he beat me fair and square... and I couldn't be prouder.

Good Game, Dude.

Despite my happiness for my skilled roomate, I can't help but feel a little wistful. This wasn't supposed to happen for another two weeks. It feels like the end of an era.

House Arrest

2007-03-05T17:27:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling particularly paranoid and anxious today;
the world is full of waiting razor blades and dirty syringes.
Angry eyes / pallid hands,
people with black holes in their heads.

The Peppering Chicken

2007-03-02T01:02:00.000-08:00

I was out for lunch with the spectacular Erica-May Chan the other day and we noticed that a dish was named "Peppering Chicken". Peppering, clearly this couldn't just be some normal dish, why not just "pepper" or "peppered"?. Then it hit us, what if they were not advertising a food but rather... a service? Immediately we conjured up visions of a prim chicken maître d' being wheeled up on a little cart and holding in it's wings a pepper grinder. I don't know what they put in the tea but we were laughing over the idea for the better part of the afternoon.

So later on we pulled out the sketchbooks and here are some of my ridiculous doodles.

Considering that I can't for the life of me remember any of the spurious details of chicken anatomy, I'm pretty happy with these. The second chicken au poivre is based on the sketch that Erica-May made since I suck at cartooning. I decided to take it all the way to kick my own ass over never using the tablet:

The Peppering Chicken was pretty damned good btw.

Knives Don't Have Your Back

2007-03-02T00:32:00.000-08:00

Have you seen this? (quicktime)

I Love Zellers.

We traded Smytty.

2007-02-27T23:54:00.000-08:00

I had a good day today, a great day today but right now i'm sick to my stomach.

Edmonton... we... traded away our heart and our soul.

Even if Ryan Smyth wins a Stanley Cup with the New York Islanders -and for his sake, I sincerely hope they do, despite the 'Isles having been pretty much been one of my least preferred teams (maybe second only to the Leafs)- I don't for one minute believe that Smyth would want to win a cup in any jersey but the blue and copper. Ryan Smyth should never have to skate for even one moment in any colours other than Blue and Copper unless it's the Red and White of his national team or an all-star jersey. I'm always going to be an Oiler man, even if someday I cease to watch hockey, i'll be an Oilers man; But for the near future and the rest of this season, there is no way I can cheer for this team.

Mr. Smyth, here's to your success. You gave Edmonton and it's fans everything and I wish you all the best no matter where you are *Raises Glass*.

Morning Glory

2007-02-26T15:03:00.000-08:00

I don't know what kind of vile notion possessed me to decide to not sleep for a night because it would be a "good idea". I'm starting to suspect that I have become some sort of personal, demented-alcoholic father figure to myself as I exhort various asinine precepts in the inebriate hope that I might "toughen up". Nevertheless, here I am: red-eyed, despondent and feeling as if my skin has shrunk two sizes too small.

The already tedious task of human interaction is made more awkward by impending narcolepsy. I met up with my benefactor to pour over the children's book illustrations, but it's looking pretty good. We're surprisingly happy with the progress. I resolve to hate those drawings in about a week's time (but no less).

Mandy, you're creeping me out because my radio alarm roused me from my non-sleeping stupor and it was the Pet Shop Boys. On local pop radio.

Also, it's sweet when you're thinking of calling someone and then they the phone rings and it's them. Nice one, Amber.

I have to go pick up some more ink and bristol board, and I have cheques to cash. I can always sleep when I'm dead. Onwards graphite and ink!

Comments!

2007-02-25T01:16:00.000-08:00

Aagh. I just realized that I had to flick a switch to let non-blogger members comment. It's done. Have at 'er.

Downtown - Episode 5 "The Con"

2007-02-25T00:35:00.000-08:00

"Check this out man, Under-Age Midget Porn! they're small and mis-proportioned... yet sexy!" - Goat

Still haven't decided whether to go to Emerald City Con this year. Part of me is plain curious but the other part is really enjoying the immaculate fresh scent of having never ever been to a comic con before.

Then again Alex Maleev is going to be there.

Who's goin?