I finished putting together a 2d character design portfolio so I'm pretty happy about that, and now on to all the other things I have to do... oh boy. The Earthworm Jim I drew was for one of my instructors who has been super kind and supportive of me. I still think its not much in showing my thanks but I hope he likes it! The other two are just cropped from larger pages with more characters for my portfolio.

I would like to say that Gurihiru is still inspiring and influencing me so much. I don't know where I would be without their great artworks. So, these works were inspired by them as well as others... I have been using blue and red color pencils because of Sasaki, the pencil and ink artist. I know traditional animators have been doing that for a long time, but it's new for me and I love it. Thank you Gurihiru~!

NY Comic Con

OK- so my super late NY comic con report! Time to sound geeky. It was super awesome!!! I enjoyed it a lot and want to go again next year. I definitely got worn out by the second day but everything I did on the first made it more than worth it to me. I got to see a number of artists I admire, for instance I got to meet "Cheeks" in person and even get a Robin head sketch! He is a really friendly guy, it helped me feel less nervous meeting one of my big art-role models, haha.

I also could've gotten an autograph from Jim Lee but I wanted to try getting a sketch and the time I saw him it was autographs only... so I tried for the next day but didn't see him again. :( I even brought my Hush book to sign- ah man!

I bought two artbooks and many cool comic books; some I knew of and others I am new to like "Atomic Robo"! With all the stuff I have to do I haven't gotten to read them yet (for shame!) but I know they will all be great. I want to sit back and enjoy them once all my work is done.

The creators of Avatar were there too! I saw special concept art, preview trailers, and clips of the upcoming episodes, it was crazy... fangirls were screaming there heads off. I now have an Avatar poster on my wall signed by Bryan and Mike!

Next time I would like to have more energy to do more things, like spend more time in the artist alley~ and to get more autographs I missed! I look forward to next year.

spag het ti

Today was my first time to the Central Park Zoo. It's pretty neat and I find it very beautiful. It's small but after all it's a zoo within a park, within Manhattan, so it's a fine size. I saw most of the animals and especially liked the tamarin monkeys and polar bears, although no snow monkeys were showing (they were cleaning the area). I also finally saw red pandas in person- finally! The only thing was... they were sleeping. They are mostly nocturnal so its understandable, and they were still super cute... got two sketches of them.

After that, I tossed a frisbee around with Will (the frisbee sensei!) in the park itself. The weather was so awesome.

Then my roomate and I spontaneously made lasagna! Yummeh!

Yesterday, I got "Professor Layton" for DS. The art direction is really charming, and totally my kind of game. I like the little animated cut scenes and the puzzles are fun... I just wish I was smarter.

It's great to be at this stage in senior year... not much time left... I make it sound like summer vacation has broken loose but don't get me wrong, I'm totally anxious about a ton of different things and got a large bundle of work I have to finish which is unsettling (demo reels, polished finalized thesis, gallery exhibit preparations, small concept art stuff... planning my future...).

That term, "THE FUTURE" has never felt closer... truly like a door a few paces ahead waiting to be opened. I gotta get myself in order.

The image above is a random doodle. I wanted to try using a western theme but amping the colors... the result is a spaghetti sauce looking piece.

check point save

Thesis was outputted to DV tape on Monday and that went well all things considered- a huge hurdle has been made! For those of you who are saying, "outputDVwha?", basically a finished version was handed in that is to be shown to faculty, classmates, and industry reps at the first screening. This is for successful graduation. In the meantime, a second more polished version of thesis will be worked on and then I hope to once and for all really feel done, posting it online and all that jazz. Wooo! I feel bad for not showing you guys any little animation previews or render previews along the way, but I needed to focus 100% on getting done without much distraction... and it worked! Now I can sorta get back to all those internety things- yay! Plus, I just felt I wouldn't do justice to the short film unless I could show it in it's entirety (didn't wanna give anything away ;P ). So, gotta wait a bit longer, and work just that extra bit... then everything will be dandy!

Oh, and the picture above is a doodle I just made since I feel awkward posting only text here. Even robots make art...?!