Hello Internet

Whoops, it's been quite awhile hasn't it. I should feel sheepish, but I don't. There's been a lot going on. I graduated from JWU in May on the same day as my cousin K (Rhody Dreaming). That was pretty cool, considering that our graduations were on opposite coasts. I won a couple of awards from the school, and did my very first paid graphic work. This is my first summer of official adulthood (or at least I think of it this way).

I had originally planned to save money and be out of my house by the end of July, but this hasn't happened for a number of reasons. The job market here in RI is terrible right now, and I've been focused on paying off what's left on my credit cards in order to save/be able to start paying my student loans come November. I have one card left to pay off, thanks to a refund check from JWU (which I'll have to pay off later anyway, as it came out of my loan money, but I would rather pay all my bills to one place). I recently got a second job doing data entry for a marketing research company. I work from home (and I should be working now but I'm taking a quick break to play catch-up while I remember) and at Showcase when they remember to give me hours. I may be getting a new job to replace the theater, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this new job comes through. I'll refrain from elaborating until I find out whether or not I get it.

Things with D are going pretty well. He's really busy now that the Theatre by the Sea season has started. Some of the girls that he works with have been really terrible lately, taking flirting and suggestive comments far over the line. D is a friendly and flirty person by nature, he's a people person. I know this and enjoy it, but at present it's more of a curse for him. Work is very stressful for him right now, because these girls (one in particular) keep taking things too far. The one who steps the farthest over the line got put in her place yesterday, because D finally told her to just fucking stop it before he lost his patience. (I think she said something along the lines of "forget your gf for just one night" and then grabbed his arse). Good riddance to bad rubbish I say, but I feel bad that these people are ruining work for him. He used to love his job, and now he just feels burnt out. He's going away to England in September to see some friends, possibly for a month or so. I'm going to miss him, but he needs time away from everyone to put his head back on straight. He applied for a job at Marvel comics, and they may have something for him in a couple of months! I'm excited for him, it's a huge honor :)

Beyond working, I just try to see my friends and enjoy the summer while I can. I finally finished the Munny for my dad, I'll take decent pictures of it soon so I can upload them here. I've only done a little bit of drawing, which isn't too surprising I suppose since I don't do it much at all anymore. I'm experimenting with drawing one-panel diary comics just to keep in practice. So here we go, enough blathering, have some arts.



Was having a bloody terrible night at work yesterday. D's text cheered me up immensely though. It's the little things, you know?

Stress, stress, and more stress

So I just wrote a gigantic blog post that disappeared. Adding to my stress. Awesome. Instead of elaborating, and retyping EVERYTHING and for the life of me I cannot get my draft to restore (and if it saved the blank then I'm fucked anyway) SO. Have some pictures of stuff I'm working on with no explanation to go along with it whatsoever.

Enjoy.




Plus one terribly photographed (used my cellphone, too lazy to scan) and equally terribly inked pose experiment.

LVL +

I haven't gotten to my dad's Munny in weeks. It's a very disappointing feeling, and frustrating too, to have a project literally at your fingertips but the free time with which to do said project is just ohhey! nonexistent.

In the mean time, I have devoted my time to making logos for a non-profit client (which they rejected, ugh...and after all that work! oh well), a typography class label project, and a t-shirt design for Kristen of Rhody Dreaming. I haven't finished the t-shirt, unfortunately that's gotten backburnered until I finish this typography thing (due tomorrow, of course).

I'll spare you all having to read about my adventures carrying a giant bit of matte board (3'x4' I kid you not) from Utrecht to Academic (about 1.5 miles) in the great gusting wind and rain (which was not as gusty but irritating nonetheless). I honestly felt like I was walking with a giant kite.

Instead, have a peek at the labels I just finished. They're fruit drinks for gamers as a healthy alternative to 5hr energy shots or whatever they are. The commercials are nasty and portray gamers as drooling shut-ins who never sleep (while this may hold true for some, it most certainly does not hold true for most) and it makes me angry. So here you go, 3 flavors:

God Mode Cherry
Bossfight Blueberry

Grindfest Grape

At some point you shall get to see them in their final form stuck to these neat little glass bottles that I found at Michael's. Until then, enjoy the juicy fruits, haha.

Secret project update

So! That project I hinted at recently, that I'm making my dad for his birthday (which was yesterday, oops) is taking a lot longer than I thought it would. I had a definite setback after the Munny Night with Maria (Museum Musings). The clay I purchased, that was advertised as "dry hard, no bake" clay, was a dud. It worked well with Maria's Howl Munny, as his entire coat was made from it and stayed in one piece. It did separate from the Munny's back, but I see this as a plus as it is much easier to paint this way. My Munny, however, did not fare so well. It was supposed to be a miniature of my father when he was a bit younger, with his hair blowing in the wind as he drove his Avanti (we will get to that). This clay I used (called Laguna), well, it shrank. As it dried, it lost moisture, and naturally shrank. Not so bad at first, when his hairline crept back a few inches.

"Well," I thought, "that's closer to his actual hairline anyway." When his face sculpting fell off completely and I could remove his hair as a single, helmet-type creation, well, that was a problem. Glue could fix it, maybe. And then the hair just broke apart. Huh. Perhaps not so fixable after all. After cursing and howling and whining about it for a few days to those who knew of the project, I pulled it together and trekked back to the craft store, bought some Super Sculpey (for the Munny) and some Delight (for the car), and called it a night.

What my project is actually trying to accomplish is quite simple. I am modifying a model car to look like a Studebaker Avanti (which you can see at the bottom of this post). In this model car I am going to place a replica of my dad. The car model I decided to customize is a 1965 Mustang. The body style is quite close, and with a small bit of front-end modification I can easily replicate the nose of an Avanti. I also cut off most of the roof to make the model a convertible; the Munny is pretty big in comparison to the car itself. It's been a long time since I actually put together a car model (I did it a lot as a kid, I loved that sort of thing), but it was fun getting reacquainted with an old hobby. So much so that I might actually make another car later on.

The car is about 99% assembled, and about 85% complete. I have only to attach the tires and front bumper at this point for assembly to be complete. I still have to sand down the mods to the nose and paint this bugger, though. For that I have acquired a metallic flaked sparkly bright limey kind of green modeling spray paint for the body, and I picked up cream and orange oil-based modeling paints for the interior detailing. That part will be fun, I love the crazy color scheme and dad and I are always joking about painting our cars obnoxious colors like that to begin with.

The car is much closer to being done than the Munny is; presently I still have to sand the Sculpey (it's been baked already), cut off the lower half to seat him in the car, and paint the bugger. Looootta work left. With the hectic trimester I have approaching I have no idea when this will get finished. Dad doesn't mind waiting (not that he knows what I'm doing) til it's done, so that's okay, I guess, but I still want to finish it soon.

We'll see! In the meantime, take a peek at the finished (re)sculpt and the mods to the front of the car. Rough, but pretty okay, I think!

New Term, New Expectations

The new trimester has started, and (for me at least) it is the last trimester. Finally! I'm pretty sure I'm going to drop Personality Psychology, mostly because I don't need it and if this tri is going to involve as much work as I think it is, then this class is only going to get in the way of progress.

I don't have much else to update, except perhaps that progress on my dad's present has pretty much come to a standstill with the start of classes. Since his birthday is this sunday, I'm going to have to give him an I.O.U. Crud. In the interim, enjoy these t-shirts I had to design as homework using only type. If I could remember where the templates came from, I'd tell you.

Huzzah

I love that word, Huzzah! It makes me feel as though I'm in the middle of a Renaissance faire. No artwork to update once again, but I'm making progress with the my plans for my second customized Munny. My best friend (Maria of Museum Musings) and I are getting together tomorrow afternoon to start a customizing marathon of sorts. This will be her first Munny and she's as excited as I am.

On a random scholarly note, finals are over and I am trying to enjoy my week off between the trimesters. So far, it's okay. Aside from a bit of a snow-shoveling debacle at D's house on Monday it's been a decent vacation. Grades are in too, and I scored awesome. 2 A+s, 3 As, and a S for Satisfactory (typically identified as a pass/fail class at most universities) as that was only a 1 credit course. I was terrified that trying to balance 6 classes, a part time job, 2 club memberships and a social life was going to end horrifically. I got very, very lucky. Didn't sleep much though! But that's to be expected.

So far getting my life in order is going okay, too. I've been able to put some money away in the bank and still make decent payments to some of my bills. It helps that I've been working more hours. I've also been reading the book I bought about freelancing in depth; it's definitely going to be a great resource for any future business endeavours I make. It's already pointed out a few things I never thought about and I've only just begun the 4th chapter. An excellent investment, that.

I know none of you are interested (ha who am I talking to no one reads this) in what I personally am doing, so I'll leave you with a teaser involving my latest custom undertaking. It involves one of these:

Plans!

I have plans, now. (Oh yes, scary I know). As I mentioned in the last post, I am working on entering the real world and finally acknowledging that at 22, I am supposed to be an adult. I've already taken some steps to get my life under control.

Yesterday, I gave my mother all 3 of my credit cards and told her to keep them for me. She won't use them, she has her own. But this limits me to only having the money I can make in a week, and I will be forced to budget myself now. I dropped an unecessary sociology class for next trimester (I just liked the prof) and decided to take an entry level business accounting class instead. If I'm going to start up a freelance company it will help if I know how to do the books. To that effect also, I bought a book last night about how to begin your own freelance graphic design/illustration business, and so far it's been very informative and helpful.

My final exams for this crazy trimester are next week. I can honestly say that I enjoyed 90% of my classes these past 11 weeks. I took Abnormal Psychology, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Deviant Behavior (sociology), Career Capstone (required), Environmental Science, and Introduction to the Art of Film (which I hated, thanks to the professor). My major is Computer Graphics, and my concentrations are Desktop Publishing and Psychology. Interesting mix, yeah, but they're fun to know about. Weirdly, one of my customers at work was a computer programmer with a concentration in psych. I didn't think many people mixed them up at such far ends of the spectrum like me, but it was a cool coincidence.

As far as design work goes, my father's 52nd birthday is in March (the 15). I am planning to make him a custom Munny figure, another of the 4" minis. I have some grandiose plans for what I would like to do, but I don't have much time to do it in. I have a feeling the week of my break is going to be filled with a lot of sculpting and painting. I would like to model the Munny after my dad, and have it riding in an Avanti (a model of Studebaker he has coveted for many years).

I have plans for other custom Munnys as well, but they have been backburnered for now as this is a priority. I bought some dry-hard air drying clay to avoid having to bake this time around. I did some reading and found that Sculpey and Super Sculpey (as well as Fimo) tend to give off fumes while they are baking and should not be baked in ovens that food is also prepared in. My family has one oven, and I don't want to poison them with my projects, so this will be an experiment to see how effective this is. I also bought a put-together model of a 69 mustang that I am going to cannibalize for car parts. Mostly I just need the undercarriage and wheels, as I would like this contraption to roll. I bought spray primer this time round as well, to see if I have to apply fewer coats of acrylic paint/can prevent the paint chipping off. No sewing required this time around either, which is nice.

Since I shouldn't post without at least giving you something art-related to look at, I give you two photoshop doodles done over the last couple of weeks to keep me from getting too out of practice.

A new direction

I've been thinking, lately. Always dangerous when one is as absent-minded and easily-distracted as I am.

It's time for a change, methinks. Not a huge one, insofar as this blog is concerned. Changes here will be minimal at best (which means yes, I'll probably continue to update every month or so if I remember). Mostly minor lifestyle changes which I hope will lead to better management of my time and money, an improvement in my fitness/eating habits, and a deeper committment to becoming a better artist and graphic designer. I have been influenced in part by other blogs by close friends as far as this particular decision goes; these thoughts have been percolating for a long time and a string of recent events (as well as these blogs) have given me the motivation to begin.

I'm going to explain what I have in mind for improving, but first I must give a bit of background. This is something I should have done when I began this blog, but neglected to do in favor of letting the artwork speak for itself. So an introduction to the oddity that is myself (if a bit belated).

• I am a 22 year old graphic design senior at Johnson & Wales University. For the first 3 years of my education at JWU, I went to classes, did the work, and went home, making a few friends here and there. As a commuter, I had no real ties to the campus and no real urge to stay after classes were over. I thought about getting involved, and watched what went on in the AIGA (the organization for design professionals) group from the sidelines in my Junior year. This year I chose to join my school's AIGA chapter and finally become involved. I wish I had done it sooner.
• Continuing in the vein of school involvement, I've also joined the newly formed blog club, recently christened "linkBAIT." Not only am I the secretary, but I am also a graphic designer and content writer for the blog we will be posting. This is going to be quite a bit of work.
  
• For a little over four years, I was in an on-again/off-again emotionally abusive relationship. It was occasionally physically abusive as well. It was not a good time in my life and I lost friends because of it. I nearly lost myself as well. For the last two years I have been slowly rebuilding my tattered self-esteem. If not for a few very close friends, I might not have had any left at all. I've alternated between hiding from and fighting against depression since I was 16; it is time to take hiding out of the equation.
  
• This past June I was introduced to a man I'll call D. We met through facebook (no judging!) via a mutual acquaintance who thought we had a lot in common. D and I talked for a month or so, and then decided to meet and see what happened. (We only live 25 miles apart)
  We met for dinner and talked nonstop; for nearly a month after that we hung out on a weekly basis, sometimes several times a week. In August we decided to start dating officially and have been together ever since. D loves comic books, video games, and art. He's very family-centric and loyal to his friends; he makes me laugh and feel like I could actually be a better person sooner rather than later. I love D very much.
  
• I am not a religious person. I was raised to be a Roman Catholic, went through my Confirmation and everything, but these days I attend church for weddings and funerals only. And fortunately there have been very few of those in the 7 years since then. I like to fancy myself an Agnostic of sorts; it's comforting to believe there's a big omnipresent force in the sky that watches over us humans, but I don't think I have the right to ask it for help. Now please don't misunderstand me here, this is only my personal opinion and I'm not attacking anyone else's beliefs, I feel everyone has the right to choose what they believe. Quite frankly I feel selfish asking a mysterious ethereal being for help; I'm sure it has better things to do than help me pass a test or get a job. Mostly the thought of it serves to remind me that the best person to help me is myself, and that my life is what I make of it. Right now my life could be much more, and I am working towards enrichment.
  

Right. That's enough of that nonsense. As far as my plans go, my number one goal is to be moved out of my house by July. This will probably not happen, but it is something to work towards and look forward to. D has been unhappy lately with his fitness level and is going to go on runs, starting tomorrow morning. I was most distressed to learn that D, who is more than a foot taller than myself, is only 30lbs heavier than I am. D is not what anyone would call overweight; he's quite lean. I, on the other hand, am getting pudgier and lazier as the years go by. We talked about it tonight, and when I am down there on the weekends we're going to go on walks together (he has a very nice neighborhood). I've been trying to motivate myself to lose weight and exercise more for months. For nearly a year I went to belly dancing classes on a regular basis and was able to lose about 9 pounds and regain a good amount of stamina. I had to give it up 10 weeks ago when I began this trimester; with 6 classes, a part time job, and 2 different clubs I literally had no time to go. My weight has since gone back up thanks both to holiday cookies and a lack of energy once my school requirements for the day are taken care of.

I've also been thinking of starting soccer again. My Environmental Science professor has been talking for the last few weeks about an indoor team that he's gotten together. They play on wednesday nights on a turf field. In the spring he's going to hold 6 or 7 am practices on sundays at Winslow park for a men's team he's on; he's already said I'd be welcome to join if I wanted, they're always looking for more people. Winslow park is literally a ten minute walk from my house. There is no good reason for me not to do it (aside from reinjuring my knees and ankles, but you only live once, damn it).

To improve my health, I have finally taken my grandmother's advice and begun taking vitamins. I take a multivitamin and a Vitamin C supplement every morning with a glass of milk at breakfast. I stopped drinking soda nearly a year ago, as caffeine was doing terrible things to my body and my sleeping habits. I have tried to eat better, but that is a struggle as I love food dearly and can't really stop myself from mindless snacking when I'm only a little hungry, but feel like I should be chewing. So far the only improvements that I have been able to note are in my health and my teeth; since I started taking the vitamins I haven't gotten sick (despite sleeping in the same bed as D when he's got a terrible, horrible cold), and my teeth have actually gotten a bit whiter. The caffeine stained them yellow, and now they are not nearly so horrifying to look at. If I am honest with myself, my face is also much less puffy than it used to be, now that there is little to no caffeine keeping me bloated.

My time and money management are horrible. Some days I'm really on the ball and everything that needs to be done is done. Then there are days like today, where this entire blog post (which could have been done later) is being done now in lieu of a final project due tomorrow afternoon (technically today as I write this). My money management is HORRENDOUS. I hate to wait for anything if I want it right that second, which I suppose is a trait of my generation, but still. I am in a good amount of debt, which is only going to get infinitely worse after graduation thanks to student loans. I make enough money to have paid these bills off several times over but I continue to pay back a bit and then spend more than I've sent off in payment. On top of this I have now added my own cellphone plan as a measure of independence; I won't be living in this house much longer and it's unfair to expect my parents to pay for my phone after I've left. I've also had a social life for the first time in ages; for most of high school I really only hung out frequently with one person and he had no friends for us to go out with, and my friends hated him so I just didn't go out. Now that I can and do go out, I spend my money just as much as before, but on different things. I need to sit down and give myself a budget. The only trouble is that where I work, the hours are uncertain and you never know exactly how much you'll be able to bring in each week, which is severely limiting.

As far as the blog goes, I will be posting not only artwork, but design work as well, and updating you all on what I happen to be doing in school at the time, or progress with life changes/what have you. Since I am diversifying my life a bit, I'll be doing the same to the blog. So here's to new beginnings!