like a spacetime inspector

Nothing much interesting happening in my life after that massive list of last entry, though the thought I'll be off to Canada in two months to live for the rest of the year is pretty intimidating.. and exciting, haha.
Also again, if you're a Community fan & you're in the LA area: be sure to check out the Six Seasons and a Movie art show! I really wish I could be there for the opening weekend (the art will be exhibited at another location all summer, which is when I'll be visiting in late-August, but most of the exciting stuff is this weekend) but unfortunately a rather large ocean prevents that from happening


..oh wait, I also got an Intuos5 haha my Intuos2 is still working but I thought I'd reward myself for getting halfway through uni. I feel like I've betrayed my trusty tablet of 7 years but I'm still planning to bring it overseas with me! I'm still adjusting to the ExpressKey workflow but it's pretty amazing.

fall into place

(before I forget, I [somewhat reluctantly] set up a Facebook page! Will figure out what to do with it when I find that elusive thing called time - suggestions are appreciated in the mean time!)

So my life is being consumed by life/uni/upcoming exams/organising exchange, oh gosh. But some exciting news! One of my pieces was just accepted into Ballistic Publishing's EXPOSÉ 10 which I'm super excited about. I was also invited to submit work to the Six Seasons and a Movie art exhibition and am trying to manage printing/framing/postage to California on top of everything else; on the way to Montreal (where I'll be living & studying for four months come September) I'll be stopping by LA to cry over look around CalArts and Art Center as well as drop by the exhibition. Also, both Digital Artist magazines (#31 and #32) featuring my articles/guides have now been published :) Also, I went to agIdeas (Shaun Tan!) and was probably more inspired than I should have been considering I need to stay focussed on very non-art-related studies at the moment. sigh Also, I've come down with a pretty bad cold which I hope all my lovely leukocytes et al will be able to suppress before exams in two weeks





...I'll post a better picture later haha
And some photos as filler, I guess

(there was another page but I didn't want to clog up this entry too much)


Business cards! ...yeah I really have nothing to show for the past few months oh gosh

matriarchs of summers past

Posting! I have a few things to post merely because I have a midsem next Monday which covers 36 lectures and I'm avidly avoiding studying for it haha (how will I ever cope with the 72 lectures' worth of exam)





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and the thrill won't stop

Oh man I can't believe it's already April?? Going through some issues atm (or rather a continuation/worsening) so I won't say anything about my incredibly mundane personal life in case I go on a huge emotional ramble haha, though I will say I'm vaguely worried I managed to convince myself to take this whole weekend off any uni work despite having a midsem tomorrow? Additionally, basically all my close friends/family have recently implied that they assume I'm going to go into a science career despite all my d&m conversations with them over many, many years about my ~inner turmoil~, which has just convinced me that no one actually believes/takes what I say seriously. Wonderful feeling, that. BUT I said I wouldn't go into a personal ramble ahh damnit








(ok I'm just posting this to fill up space haha, just a mockup psd to help me with my room redecoration which is basically the only thing that even vaguely piques my interest these days.)

And I actually think that's.. all I've drawn since my last post in late February. I'm not sure this discovery makes me feel any better ahahah gonna go.. drown my sorrows in tea and.. crumpets....
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if i ever feel better

So despite my resolutions I unsurprisingly seem to have neglected this place again, oh dear. Haven't really managed to do my one-sketchbook-page-a-day thing either

But anyway! Not much in the way of news, though I was approached to do some freelancing work for the UK-based Digital Artist magazine and my first article/guide will be published in late March in issue #31, hurrah :) Also, university starts again next week. Not so hurrah.
Also also, I appear to have turned 19, which I'm not altogether happy about haha. Also also also, I'm not quite prepared to publically post my animation from the February intensive subject I did because it's quite terrible - next time maybe! In the meantime, have this meagre offering of sketches, padded with some things I did for the article.







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all of the colour in the night

Happy new year! Just thought I'd better update before I go overseas in about.. 6.5 hours, heh
(Also I don't really post much personal stuff here but hey, why not - I'll leave that to the end)




My attempt at different facial structures, from which I quickly became distracted



As you can see by my lifelong somewhat-obsessive-compulsive dating habits my one-page-a-day didn't quite work out this week h-haha to be fair I was at the beach all of yesterday and bowling the day before and today has just been hectic and I'm going out for dinner in less than an hour too.. but the rest of 2012, I swear. No excuses.

Two old pieces that I didn't really post anywhere haha, I think back in 2008?


The three Christmas pictures I did this year seemed to have a bit of a theme haha (read: I couldn't think of anything better)

Okayy so onto my personal spiel: the past few days I've been really motivated to actually get good at art (thanks to Stephen Silver's artcast, Bobby Chiu, realising how much I didn't improve last year and how I'm nearly 19 and I wanted to be so much better by now than I am, and entire days spent pining after art books*), it actually feels pretty great haha! The only problem: I don't know what direction I want to go in. I think this has always been my problem (which probably led to the falling-apart of my aspirations of studying animation at RMIT, as well as my art-related goals entirely) and it's no longer viable to carry on directionless; do I want to concentrate on detailed illustration? something more cartoony? animation? Sure, I can dabble in everything but I know that without a general focus I'm not going to get anywhere, haha. So this is my main issue now and to be honest I'm not sure what to do.
(*I did end up spending $28 on the two cheapest art books I could find haha, one for LotR and one for Surf's Up - at that point I restrained myself because that is a lot of money! ..to me)

Anyway, this led to some new years resolutions: fill at least one sketchbook page a day (not my measly effort last year in which I didn't even fill a 60-page A5 sketchbook), experiment more with traditional media, and figure out what the heck I want to focus on so I can stop moping so much and focus more on.. biomed......... (sigh)

On the topic of uni though, Melbourne is miraculously offering an animation subject in February which I can take as breadth for my course and I was so thrilled, I immediately jumped on it (even though it cancelled out any chance of me going to Helsinki for exchange nooo) and I'm really looking forward to it! It sounds more like experimental animation but I'm not going to be picky; any opportunity to learn anything art-related in a proper teaching environment is a real godsend. ...just not sure what they mean by "a sketchbook equivalent to 1000 words" haha isn't one picture worth 1000 words... anyway I'm a little apprehensive but super excited yay

Actually I do have another major issue apart from lack of direction, which is lack of creativity. As a kid my head constantly buzzed with so many ideas that I couldn't get them down fast enough - now everything I draw is unoriginal, uninspired and just.. frustrating. I don't think my massive fanart phase helped. So my creative muscle has nearly deteriorated entirely and I have no clue how to exercise it; everything I draw still looks so flat and dull compared to the amazing ideas that other artists churn out. (I know comparisons are unhealthy when it comes to skill level, but is it the same for creativity levels? hmm) And when I see all those really nifty stylish illustrations with cool colours and shapes and ideas that look so simple but detailed (yeah, those ones) or even just sketches and to top it all off, most of them are by people younger than me. Hahaha. I wanted to be at least decent by 19 but that really didn't happen and the fact I know it's my fault doesn't help ??

But uh that slid down the feared negativity path a bit too much so I think that's all on the art front for now. Hopefully when I return from my trip I'll have heaps of stuff to post but I feel that saying that might jinx it hahaha
(wait, on a minor note I was passed the contact details of an art director at Volta who is a family friend's friend - as cool as it is though, I'm definitely not at that skill level/field. Not to mention there's kind of an ocean or two in the way. A bit like when my mum met a guy who was a director at VCA and who knew professors at.. CalArts..... just the mention of the name made me drop everything sighhhh California words cannot describe my envy)

And a final resolution: post more often to avoid these massive entries.
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