There's a new Lunargyros page up, you can read it here.

I was gonna talk about the Oscars, wasn't I? Well, long and short of it, went "okay cool" at some of it and was disappointed at a bunch of it. Tron, Tangled and HTTYD all got shafted. :| Tron should've gotten a score nomination anyway, or a VFX award. HTTYD definitely deserved score, and I wished it'd gotten Best Animated (with TS3 taking Best Picture, ahahaa like that'd ever happen.) Tangled definitely deserved best original song. I wasn't surprised that The King's Speech took Best Picture and a bunch of the other awards, 'cause it was really good. But let's be honest...10 years from now, people will remember Toy Story 3, not The King's Speech.

Also, not that impressed with the hosts. That kids' chorus at the end was way more impressive. Bring back Hugh Jackman, he was entertaining!

Yesterday was all day at the Gnomon preview day, which went pretty well! Finally got to talk in person with the recruiter from Nickelodeon, since I've just been emailing her previously. Also said hi to the people from Thinkwell, they totally remembered the silly movie I'd worked on there. XD The cool people from Wet Design were there, as was that slightly unsettling guy. We'll see if I get any actual bites from yesterday. Speaking of, I should write Alison again...

So I gave in and watched the first few episodes of the new My Little Pony. And...yeah, I can see why people won't stop gushing about that show now. It's somehow both teeth-rotting cute and REALLY ADDICTING. HELP I CAN'T STOP. Expect ponies art from me later...

I also may need to watch (or at the very least do some studies) for a more action-oriented show...I hear Young Justice has been quite good? Anyone know if that's an action series worth seeing?

Drawing: Sooo much LG, but also fanarts...

Writing: Fun things in RP

There were good things yesterday! Went to the Gnomon preview day yesterday, saw some dudes from school that I haven't seen in awhile, and also talked with a few companies. Afterwards, yamikonumber7 and I went to see Rifftrax Live, and hooooooly crap we laughed our heads off. That was an awesome show full of many lulz. I need to get that one on DVD. XD

I also completed a page of things yesterday. I need to keep doing more pages of things:

( A Page of Things )

Less good things today...my tablet is dying, and fast. D8 The cord is torn at the root where it connects to the tablet, and there are little bits of wire starting to twist out. Pretty sure the tablet is past its warranty. Which means I need to either magically be able to fix this wire (very unlikely) or else it's time to buy a new tablet. Uuuuugh this is money I did not want to spend. X(

Help me out, artists on my flist. What would you recommend? I am looking at either the Intuos 4 Wireless or the Intuos 4 medium-size. I had an Intuos 3 before and an Intuos 2 before that; it seems they've discontinued those since then. I would loooove to get a Cintiq, but I just can't afford it right now. :( Does anyone on my list use the Intuos Wireless? How is it? Is it worth the extra money? If this last tablet is dying because the wire got twisted up, then it may be advantageous to avoid wires in the future...



( Day 19 - Wayne's World )

( Day 20 - Gojira (Godzilla) )

And there's a new Lunargyros page up today; read it here.


Drawing: Too much LG, will hopefully do board thing soon...

Writing: Still stuck on the RP for now

Days until BBS release: 18 (WE'RE IN THE TEENS NOW)

Went out for a very nice lunch today, and it looks like I'm going to be getting a bunch more storyboarding work starting next week! Resume-boosting, finished-product-on-TV, enjoyable, paid work!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAY

(This totally helps make up for the crappy days I was having earlier)

Also, I am going to a gallery opening at Gnomon tonight (Naughty Dog art! :O), am probably going back in for life drawing tomorrow morning, and then have a bit more operator temping at night. So if you don't see me around as much, that is why.

Speaking of, crap, this makes me realize I'm gonna miss the Oscars! Does anyone know if there'll be a site where they're streaming online? (Even though I know I'm going to be mad when Avatar wins, OH WELL.)

Drawing: LG lots and lots

Writing: Fic

Consecutive Days Gone Spoiler-Free: 7

Realizing now that next week may be a little busy, so I'm tryin' to lay out everything I have to do and/or want to get done...

Today
- Life drawing/work on models at school

Monday
- Email people I haven't in awhile
- Pick up little bro from airport
- Dentist appointment (bleh)
- Update website

Tuesday
- D-Land to do painting/sketching all day

Wednesday
- Work on art project all day
- Register for con y/n?
- Laundry

Thursday
- Finish new LG pages
- Finish texture maps
- Possible art gallery thing (??) / or else kids' lesson

Friday
- Back to Gnomon to model more

Saturday
- Finish up anything not finished already
- Dissidia!

Sunday
- D-Land again with mom

So if I'm a little more scarce some days, that is why! Aaaand now I gotta head off~

Drawing: Various things

Writing: Nah much

Consecutive Days Gone Spoiler-Free: ...2

So I'm at Gnomon today to do some modeling work. (Sheesh, I'm out of practice again.) And I come back in from lunch.

...And someone is playing FFXIII (in Japanese, obviously) on the hugeass 40-something-inch HD TV in the student lounge area.

Fugdamn that is one SERIOUSLY PRETTY GAME. Like honestly, the trailers and stuff I've seen online don't do it justice. That's the sort of game you're supposed to be playing on your hugeass 40-something-inch HD TVs. Really gorgeous art and animation, even in the non-cinematic stuff.

...And now I had to be in here and work instead of watching the dude play it. 8| FFFFFFFFFFFFF

More substantial post will come laters.

Drawing: So much stuff I don't even

Writing: Thhhhhings

OOF well, bunches of things have happened lately! (For given values of My Boring Life, anyway. XD)

- OMG DC ENDGAME AAAAH ENDGAME AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH *runs around bwahaha* And it's going OSSM SO FAR. It's also taking up lots of my time, BUT THAT'S OKAY BECAUSE ENDGAME. I need to do some arts for it.
- The new stuff out for KH:BBS just makes me all the more excited. 8D Trailers yessssss! If only we didn't have to wait until next year for the game...
- Finished the Ansem model, finally. There's still some mistakes to it/things I would have done differently/etc., but overall it was nice to model again. I probably will make a tutorial for it, even with the mistakes and stuff. Learn by learning and all that.
- On Friday I actually ended up being a guest critiquer for Andillon's Visual Structure class, which I took back in late 2007. It was really strange being on the other end of the critique, especially having taken the class myself. A lot of the projects were really good, but you could tell how nervous some of the students were! From this experience, I have also learned that about 40% of critique is BSing. 8D; At least it is when I try it.
- Yesterday aside from class, I also caught the latter half of the presentation on 9. Ffffff I can't wait to see the movie on Wednesday; hopefully going with friends from school. Also, I have discovered a scarier monster than the cat skull robot. Daaang, this movie will look awesome but also scare the crap out of me. After that, I went over to the gallery opening for the film, where they had tons of the concept art, texture comparisons, and even the entire color script. o_o (lol spoilers oops) The art just looked so amazing.
- I HAVE MY SWIMSUIT NOW. Anyone at the New House Of Fandom: do you guys have free days sometime during the week? :D

Drawing: Paintings and LG pages

Writing: ENDGAME

I stopped by Gnomon this afternoon and while John's class wasn't going for me to sneak into, I did notice that they'd upgraded some of the labs! New monitors in two of the labs that had really godawful, eye-burning monitors. And someone put the big Princess Leia statue in Lab 1, lawls...like, right in the center of all the computers.

Someone made a really really nice RP!Secret about me and aaaaaah! 8O Totally made my day! ♥♥

And then pretty much right after seeing that I met up with bunches of Gnomon friends that I haven't seen in weeks and we went to Saddle Ranch at the Universal Citywalk. Never been there before, and the food was pretty good! Got stuffed halfway through so I had to take the rest home. Didn't get any alcohol myself, but they had these shots there called "Bloody Smurfs." Apparently tasted like Kool-Aid. A few of the boys got kinda tipsy, but unfortunately we didn't go and do the mechanical bull (mostly because dinner took about three hours to do and we were all starting to feel conked out).

And after dinner we stopped by the ginormous candy store on the Citywalk and I got a big bag of gummies and sweets that should last me a few days.


So yeah. Good day today. :D

I'm heading out to another gallery opening at school. Considering I've never actually attended one before, I figure now would be a good time to do so. |D I always enjoy seeing the new arts they put up there. After that, I'm picking up the Kia and early tomorrow morning we'll be meeting cool dudes down at Disneyland. Mayhaps there will be pictures! We shall see.

In that sense, I will be away from the internets until Monday. Take care, dear flist! ♥

I HAVE SURVIVED THE TRIAL OF THE WISDOM TEETH. \o/

Man, Tuesday was pretty weird. I seriously didn't remember anything about the actual procedure. One minute I'm talking to the doctor about techno music, and the next my dad is helping me upstairs to my bed. I don't even remember leaving the office or the drive home. Extremely bizarre.

Then I spent most of Tuesday sleeping and in pain. D: Kinda burst into tears when I tried to eat some pudding and discovered it hurt like hell just to swallow. Also, my lower lip was numb for the longest time, and it felt like I had a ventriloquist dummy mouth. Creepy!

Since then I've been (trying to) take it easy, been popping those prescription pills, and have been eating lots of jello, pudding, and ice cream. I can chew out of one corner of my mouth now, but the right side is still in too much pain to use, and overall my mouth still hurts. :P I'm hoping that it gets better soon!

So yesterday and Thursday I went to the Employer Preview Days at school. They were busy (actually rather exhausting), and many many business cards were exchanged! Lots of different companies looking at my stuff! :O From what I heard around, all the employers were impressed and some would be getting in contact with everyone, so it looks like everyone was in the same boat employment-wise. Either way, I'm glad I went and passed out all my info. Gotta get to making thank-you cards just as soon as I get more printer ink AGAIN, auuugh. Alison was actually the only one to offer some critique on my boards (along with the other Disney people), so I gotta get to work on massive revisions this next week.

And finally, super-late, but here's the new Lunargyros page.

Drawing: LG, desperately need to star the new boards.

Writing: Tags and wiki

Had my graduation ceremony last night with my parents and ghettopeach! It took them awhile to get everything going, as there was supposed to be a taco bar at 5:30 and it didn't get set up until about 6:00. Oops. |D Got to show my family and friends around my school, which is a teeny thing, but it's all good! (I think my mom was just slightly disturbed by some of the stuff we've got hanging up all over the walls, as almost all of the art is film/fantasy/sci-fi oriented, and my mom haaaas...never been a fantasy fan.) After lots of mingling and munching in the gallery, we finally had the actual ceremony!

This consisted of the admin giving some talks and us all showing off our reels. People still really like the wolf spider, ahahaha. XD (I need to spend the time to try and figure out fur for it again). Everyone's reels were made of awesome. I got a shiny certificate, a cap with a tassel on it (not the square kind of caps, these were SPESHUL), some champagne and a bunch of hugs. Then afterwards we went and got some hot chocolate.

Man, I can't believe it's actually over! All that work and learning and wrestling with the programs went by so fast...and at the same time, it's just made me realize how much left there is to learn. It's kind of a lifelong thing. I'll miss all my friends from school, too...hopefully will see them around the studios.

Speaking of, next week is the big career fair at school. o_o Have to make sure I have all my stuff polished and ready so that some kind employer will take pity on my poor employment-less self and hire me to draw them various things of a neat and useful variety.

Drawing: Oof, I need to do some LG, something for DC, and a few other things...

Writing: DC tags

There was a new Lunargyros page put up on Tuesday. Getting to a fun part!


Ahhh, so they finally announced Oscar nominations for this year! I've found myself caring less and less about the Oscars than I used to (ironically) but I'm still interested in the animated films because I'm a geek like that. Wall-E, Bolt and Kung Fu Panda are all up for Best Animated, which makes it a really tough choice because I think all three films were excellent. Buuuut I think Wall-E's gonna walk away with the prize, and rightfully so.

However, Wall-E didn't get nominated for Best Picture! I'm so very disappointed. :(

And ffffff, I have no idea what to root for in Best Animated Short. Presto made me nearly cry I was laughing so hard, but Oktapodi was absolutely bloody brilliant and it'd be nice for a non-Pixar-short to win for once. I need to see the other shorts still.


Today I'm heading back to school for another one of those company presentations, and then tomorrow is my graduation! @_@ Holy cooooow, I can't believe it!

Also, for my graduation thingie I've actually got one more ticket left, since neither of my little brothers can come. ghettopeach already said she'd come. Is there anyone living in the area who'd like to come to my graduation? It's at 5:30 tomorrow, but obviously you need to allow time for traffic and getting there. If so, let me know! You can see my school and a bunch of the artwork stuff I've done in my time there, and there will be food!

Speaking of, I need to go burn a DVD or two of that stuff...

Drawing: Not nearly enough now. Yesterday I kinda hit an art block and was unhappy with everything I was doing. :( Hopefully it'll clear up soon.

Writing: Haven't been able to spork again yet; doing RP

So just now I finished my very last class for Gnomon.

It's...kinda weird. I feel like I both finished a month or two ago, and that I'm still not done yet. Either way, it doesn't quite feel like a finale. Maybe because I felt like the last huge project I had to do was for our Reels and Resumes class, and our graduation "ceremony" isn't until January. But either way, I suppose I am now officially done.

The past two years did go by a lot faster than I thought they would! Those first couple of terms were both exciting and exhausting, getting to know all the programs and feeling so intimidated by what everyone could do. But over the months, I've learned a ton of stuff not just in the programming, but in my art, and how I go about talking to people in the industry. I know now that I can model and UV anything pretty quickly, I can texture it and light it, I can rig and skin it (barely) and that I can animate it, and once I render everything out, I can composite it together. I can figure out the pipeline for a movie or a video game pretty quickly. Although I think the most important thing I've come away with is the knowledge to never stop learning...in art and in new computer programs, there's always something new to discover, and no kind of education is a waste. I hope I never forget that.

And now? Well, I'm on break for the rest of the month, and it feels just as weird. I've got a paid internship lined up starting in January, but I still need to find out my days and hours. In the meanwhile, I've got to keep looking for a job that's more permanent or can become permanent.

Expect a huge art dump of life drawing stuff either tomorrow or Tuesday.

Drawing: Last life drawing stuff

Writing: Usual RP

What's this? Is there some shirtless Galen in today's two new Lunargyros pages? I don't know, there could be! Might as well go check!

I'm almost done with my modeling reel. Just gotta find some good music for it (although they often turn off the music for that anyway...) and then create the packaging. Man, I just keep having to go back to Best Buy this term. 8/ Plus today I go to get ~~placement counseling~~ aaaaaaaah!

I'm onnnnnnn...day three for Joshua's week, I think. I still miss Shiki. ;_; Also, I came across a light blue noise symbol, so of course I clicked it and it was some funky Fox Noise and it almost whooped my ass. D8

Speaking of games, I need to go put in my reserve for Re: CoM sometime soon!


I know that half the people on my flist has seen this already multiple times. However, that means that there's a half who hasn't, and that must needs be rectified!

Literal Video version of Take On Me:



Drawing: Tons of life drawing...I need to buy a new pad of paper already. Sheesh, that went fast. Also that stuff for Imaginative Landscapes.

Writing: Sora's busy in DC right now!

There's a new Lunargyros page up today; you can check it out here.

Okay so...does anyone have a good strategy for beating the 1000-infantrymen soldiers mission in Crisis Core? I'm bound and determined to beat that mission, but I just. KEEP. DYING. Even with getting stuff like the Phoenix or Cait Sith on the DMW. D:


WOAH TOTAL FAIL on the school's part: we just had a big ol' blackout, and all the computers shut off. Sooooo glad I wasn't working on anything important! Sucks to be some other people around here, I'm sure! >_>

It's really bizarre not having a massive amount of digital to work to do this term...it's probably because I'm not doing Alex's class and everyone else is working hard through that. o_o So I'm just putting stuff together for reels instead. I've given up trying to put fur on the wolf spider...I'll just texture him as best I can. I've modeled a sailgull, too! After doing the wolf spider, I felt a lot more confident about how to go about it and it's gone much faster. Hopefully it'll look good.


askdjalkklasfffffff I am so...aaah about doing these sorts of things. X( PEER PRESSURE TRIUMPHS AGAIN?!?!




AND NOW I'M GOING TO GO. Eat pop tarts for dinner, probably.

Drawing: Finished an LG page and some sketches for that fantasy story yesterday, along with a bunch of life drawings. I actually have some weird thoughts on that...but that's for later.

Writing: Little bits.

Well, Lucasfilm did the whole presentation thing on Wednesday, although they were about half an hour late so it had to be cut pretty short. >< Then they did our internal crits, but since it had to be over a dozen people in the space of an hour, they went pretty fast, and I ended up cutting out a lot of stuff from some of my classes. However, they said that they did like what I had in terms of story/concept stuff and that I was definitely heading in the right direction. :D Made me very very glad to hear it!

Stayed home yesterday and did nothing but RP and play FFX...it's helped marginally, and I'll be back at school again today, although I've still got a bit of yucky pressure in the sinuses. This ridiculous heat isn't helping at all. XP It seems like seriously everyone I've been talking to lately, no matter what part of the country they're in, has been sick the past few days, myself included. What the heck is up with that? It makes me wonder how much of this sickness is common cold germs, and how much of it is anxiety. Stress can definitely kick your immune system down a couple of notches, so who knows. I'll be in class tonight (MEL scripting and Renderman, ehhhh) but I still hope the debates actually take place tonight.

Ugh, feel like there's more to talk about, but I don't know what to say. -_-

Drawing: Will probably do some more LG today. I really want more of a drawing drive.

Writing: RP! Epic! Woo!

Kia, you got me sick. D: It started last night, but right now I've got sore throat and blocked sinuses. Yuuuuuuuck! DX But I can't really skip school today, and Lucasfilm is tomorrow...if I'm not better by Thursday, I'll skip lab. And I'll go get a Coldbuster on the way there today.

So yesterday was supposed to be our first Gesture Drawing class, exceeeept someone forgot to tell the teacher that. GOOD JORB, OFFICE. But the model was already there, so the teeny class just did some free drawing. I left early because bleh, sick, but got in a few sketches before I did.

( Arrr matey )

This little sketchbook isn't gonna cut it for two life drawing classes...I'm gonna need to go get a bigger pad, maybe some other stuff to draw with. I'll go Sunday. /o/

farcical, I hope you feel better. D:

Oh hey, there are in fact two new Lunargyros pages today, right here.

Drawing: Back to schoolwork, some LG.

Writing: Epic RP plot is epiiic! Gonna go tag now.

I had totally forgotten about it until, uh, I walked outside and saw all the people outside, but we had another Pixar event at school yesterday! /o/ David Munier, who was the set director for WALL-E, came and gave a presentation about building and dressing the sets for the movie, and asdkjsdksja I could barely wrap my head around it. o_o I have no clue how these artists and TDs are smart enough to do this, but they somehow manage to write displacement shaders that a) simulate tons of small collected trash, b) add in larger bits of poking-out trash, c) compact the trash down so that it looks worn, d) add age to the trash so that it looks like it's been there for hundreds of years, e) blend the trash into normal dirt, and f) randomize the effect so that it looks natural and not like a texture. And that's just the work that goes into ONE GROUND SHADER. And in his presentation, he managed to make it funny, too. XD

He talked about the trash-covered earth for awhile before moving to showing the scale and layers that went into creating the Axiom. Aside from the exterior (which they color-coded multiple times to demonstrate age, shininess, etc.) they also showed how they had to create dozens and dozens of animated moving billboards for the interior of the ship, and then animate THOSE so that they looked like they were holographs that had been running for hundreds of years. Perhaps most amusing was when they decided to integrate Massive for all the crowd scenes inside the Axion (Massive being the software they use for AI crowd control; think Happy Feet and the armies of LOTR), only to have the director go "Let's have all of the hoverchairs and robots move about the ship on FLOOR LINES!" Which is...exactly what Massive is NOT meant to do. XD;

Every time they do these presentations, even though it's often the technical supervisors talking tons of CG jargon, I'm always amazed at the time and effort they put into all the little details of the movie in order to tell the story best. None of the people there, from artists to TDs to effects people, really don't skimp on any part of their job...and the sad thing is, because they're doing their job so well you never even notice it! And David seemed really excited talking all this techie jargon on how they problem-solved these ridiculous sets. Work flies when you're having fun. :O

And it just made me wanna see Wall-E again. EEEEEE-VAH!


Drawing: New LG page; almost done with boards. Not a drawing, but I'm almost done with Brawl!Phoenix, too. :3

Writing: Not much.

FACT: Classes here are three hours in length.

FACT: Today was supposed to be a simple makeup day wherein the teacher would give us individual feedback on our projects.

FACT: Makeup class today started at 2:00.

FACT: It is now almost 6:30.

FACT: In that FOUR AND A HALF HOURS, maybe ten minutes of it went to attempting to figure out the problems with my project and, consequently, getting nowhere.

FACT: I have not been caring at all about whatever else was said those last four hours and 20 minutes.

FACT: I AM STARVING.

CONCLUSION: PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT WHATEVERTHEHECK, TEACHER, SO THAT I CAN WALK DOWN TO PANDA EXPRESS AND GET ME SOME ORANGE CHICKEN.


FFFFfffffffggggg yes ghhk. ALSO. Tomorrow is Siggraph; I will be gone all day for that. Free pass woo! I will likely be stalking the Disney booth. Gotta make sure I get up early so that I can get parking.

Drawing: An LG page. I WAS going to work on something else between now and going home time, but my drawing desire is splut. Also, fanart finishing eludes me.

Writing: RP. Edgeworth, you make me lol.

Iiiiit's that time of year again...for the last time, actually. o_o I finally have my schedule set for 7th term, which is the laaaast term sdfjasdkl*asplode*. Gonna freak out now, thanks. So yeah, this will be my schedule for September through December:

Monday
Gesture Drawing - 7:00-10:00

Wednesday
Creative Life Drawing - 7:00-10:00

Thursday
Lab Time - 1:00-4:00
Compositing with Shake 2 - 4:00-7:00

Friday
Lab Time - 4:00-7:00
Pixar's Renderman/MEL Scripting - 7:00-10:00

Saturday
Business of Production - 9:00-12:00

Resume and Reel Workshop - TBA???

- Mwah, I was able to do a bit of negotiating! I'm doing two analog classes in the place of a digital elective, just because there were no digital electives I was dying to do, whereas there were several analog ones I wanted. Gesture Drawing should be really great for the places I want to go, and the Creative Life Drawing class is by Mahoney, so I know what to expect from those and I can get a lot of fun work out of it. XD Hoorah for getting stuff I actually want!
- Dang, got a morning class in there, and on Saturday, too. D: Guuuugh. At least traffic is not a real issue on early Saturday mornings. Bunch of these are night classes, tho, which are actually a bit tougher on me. I should survive, though.
- I have no clue if the Resume and Reels workshop is online or will be an actual class, or what. Seems kind of a bad thing to do online? >_>

Next week school's supposed to be closed for Siggraph, but I'm going to be doing so much stuff and going places that it won't really be a week off anyway. :/ I should be going to Siggraph on Tuesday and just wandering around the exhibit floor, which is nice because there are many shiny things there.

Drawing: A fanart OMG! Plus doodles and other things.

Writing: About the same.

Guhhhh, I feel like I'm in this weird state of being where I'm not really aware of the passage of time. I mean, Comic Con's only two weeks away! My birthday's less than a week away. o_o The only thing I know I'm doing for the former is driving places and hopefully meeting people and likely the Disney panel. I have NO clue what I'm doing for the latter! Does anyone wanna do something with me next Wednesday or Saturday/Sunday? ;_;

That, and term seven had their graduation ceremony yesterday (while I was still in class) and just kinda put into perspective that my graduation is soon. ._. I mean, you say "December" and it sounds like far away, but really it's not so much...

Um anyway! Have another daisychainrpg doodle that I did yesterday during class because I couldn't focus well and we had a sub anyway. Done in Photoshop in about an hour and a half~

( WAKAWAKAWAKAWAKAWAKA )

Drawing: And now off to more LG...

Writing: Little.