The Art of Never Smiling Again.

2009-07-01T19:10:00.001-07:00

Not to lose my focus, but I'm losing my focus.

try http://heavyblackwork.blogspot.com instead

Thanks.

2007-10-11T02:14:00.000-07:00

Art piece first and Sketchbook materials second/third.

2007-04-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

'The Maids of ..'

March, 2007.

2007-03-24T02:00:00.001-07:00

2007-03-22T23:10:00.000-07:00

'Young Liars. I respect your abilities.'

Emote.

2007-03-07T18:59:00.000-08:00

The Collective Smoke From Our Lungs.

All Hail The Loserking Who Screams Out Your Name.

2007-02-03T22:13:00.000-08:00

2007-01-27T09:12:00.000-08:00

2007-01-27T04:59:00.000-08:00

2007-01-26T22:18:00.000-08:00

One line drawings. Hope you like some of them.

Character Design assignment.

2007-01-26T22:05:00.000-08:00

I should scan in my one-lines and such. I don't care.

2007-01-21T17:33:00.000-08:00

2007-01-18T20:38:00.000-08:00

Did this at our Character Design class, I can never do legs on the cutesy characters .. I have to learn how soon, for my own needs let alone the classes. The next 5 images are from a sketchbook I forgot about for a while. Enjoy?

That's it for now. I'll upload a bunch of other stuff .. tomorrow?

2007-01-16T19:06:00.000-08:00

History of Animation, did a dragon. Character Design, cheesy and bad-costumed actor in a pulp sci-fi film. Aw yeah.

Character studies in History of Animation .. anyone remember what movie this was? The something Dragon? Reluctant? I forget.. it's Disney, not mine, obviously.

I rather liked the dragon, even if it was gayer than 9 guys blowing 10 guys.

That's it for now.

2007-01-16T03:03:00.000-08:00

Drawn in the following order: Character Design, Library, History of Animation. I'll upload the quick character studies we did when I get back from school. at 8 or so tonight.

2007-01-14T17:03:00.000-08:00

There we are, this is the platypus that I made for Character design. I really don't like the squashed versions (I seem to be unable to do it correctly) but I don't mind the stretched versions. If anyone that reads this and knows what they're talking about, I'd gladly take advice.

Some in-class character design stuffs. I drew Chris who was sitting beside me as an astronaut .. no damned clue why though. The other two are Rubber Lad, a character we all used in class to stretch around. I made a bunch but the only two I liked was the one I copied as a character model and the other one .. can't decide if he's being kind of sneaky or just cocksure.

More art diaherria. I don't really know what to tell you. The first two are from about 2-3 am, the last one was done in Layout class before we started to review doing text and images in our pictures.

That's it for now, I'll update again soon with some more artvomit, maybe some hands and feet, a new character.

Yeah.

2007-01-10T21:09:00.000-08:00

Current state of the previously mentioned image.

Some before-bed sketching. 12:10 am, started at 11:45 or so. I don't know, just thought I'd wind down. I'll try and scan in the Character Design stuff before I leave. at 8 am ish.

2007-01-10T11:19:00.000-08:00

Rough Sketches of a work project for a friend in France's company. Just getting ideas at this point, and I am fully aware that the body of one is completely out of perspective, just trying to get the hand and face.

2007-01-09T23:41:00.000-08:00

The Art of Never Smiling Again.

First nude model for life drawing. There seemed to be no possible way for me to get her lips right, I think I spent an hour on them of the hour and 40 minutes we used. It doesn't look right though as a whole either though, I think i thickened her neck too much. Ah well. I wanted to do a quick few pen drawings of her first but the teacher said no. Such is life. Next time.

Some quick pen drawings I've been doing. I quite like doing them this way, more fun and easier to show just how ugly everyone actually is. That's really it for now, forgot how much I enjoyed Clone High, but I took the DVD from home and now am remembering.

Another late night for me, redoing all my layout thumbnails and I messed up my grid room. Again. Why can I not understand layout? I mean, I kind of understand how and why, but the actual act of it always leaves me when I try to do it. The lines never seem to add up, as it were.
Here's one from last semester. I know the faults are pretty damn obvious, but I just can never see them at the time. I don't know.

Anyway, sitting on a whole pile of debt .. thanks government. -900 in the ol' bank with things to pay for still .. and since the student loan people are re-requesting (for the more than 3rd time) for the exact same piece of paper, I really have no money. I suppose that's just the way things work, so I'll either have to sell artwork and/or continue to look for a job. It's hard to do that in the french area of Ottawa when you don't speak French.

2007-01-07T18:25:00.000-08:00

The scan of this didn't turn out that great, missing a bunch of detail that I threw in there. The teacher doesn't really want that though, he wants a good outline so we can deal with the details and shading when he feels the class as a whole is ready .. that is, if we can attain that level at all this semester. But without some of the details, I always feel that a life drawing is .. well, lifeless. Keeping the details like the cavity in the nose, the curve of the eye sockets, the discolouration of the jaw as opposed to the forehead .. keeping those locked up just hurts my fingers. I do try, I restrained myself a lot during these classes.

Character Design class. Single shape design. These were done in class. Short sentences.

So tonight's character design was an odd attempt at trying to figure out how to make a sad salmon. It didn't turn out so well, and the last one pissed me off so much that I (for some reason) made him an hombre.

This is my final product. It's safe, I know, but I got really frustrated by the whole process and decided I should practice the basics before I wanted to eat a gun while trying to make something else.

2006-12-21T22:41:00.000-08:00

This is the last post I'll do before the new year. When I get back, I'll post up process shots of a quickie (and it definitely shows) comic, maybe some new art, some pictures of the trip back home and .. well .. that's about it.

I do hope you enjoy yourself.

2006-12-20T21:03:00.000-08:00

Reposting this. I'll be getting this on my side. Hopefully when I go back home for Christmas break.

2006-12-12T19:44:00.000-08:00

2006-12-04T14:40:00.000-08:00

Art.

some random sketches.

Another page of a couple people.

The skeleton i have drawn in Life Drawing.

.. that's all .. yeah. Last week of school .. then portfolio work.

2006-11-27T11:18:00.000-08:00

2006-11-04T18:47:00.000-08:00

A bit of something for you to view.

2006-11-04T13:18:00.001-08:00

The image to the left is the rough draft that people in my class will recognize, for my nature layout assignment. I'm redoing the moss, lines, leaves and bushes. Essentially all the rendering, the scene itself is good, so sayeth the teacher.

Next up are the geometric breakdown's of Aladdin for character design.

I'm not sure it's clean enough ..

That's it for now.

2006-09-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

Some early morning sketchings. I have no idea about the one on the right.

An old, unfinished piece of art, I should finish that like the one from a few posts back. Also included are some life drawings from the class of the same name. I love life drawing. Very tranquil, very focused.

A piece I'm doing for a friend in NFLD after she made me another of her awesomely destructive books.

Now then. School's .. going. It's week .. 6? on monday .. something like that. I am in desperate need of a drawing table, my back aches. Soon though. As soon as I submit these I'm off to do some character design work for the unamed animation project and then do some extra char. poses for school.

2006-08-31T01:00:00.000-07:00

The first week of school is almost over and I have a couple of assignments still to be worked on. Not a horrid thing considering the fact that I have an entire Thursday off.

So at this time I'm coming down from a NES binge involving Punch-Out, Faxanadu, Silver Surfer, and Mario. It's 4 am and I'm nursing a cup of green tea, considering a nice nap so I can get up at 10ish to do a few tasks, grab another two hours and climb back on the grey horse named Work. During the weekend I'll have a couple other assignments to do along with two stylized Life drawings of some friends and a remix.

I'm going to bed now, I'll post something this week. Prepare to be underwhelmed.

(uncut, unfixed preview page from Marmalade Girl Running)

2006-08-20T22:56:00.000-07:00

In the beginning .. I didn't know.

As time passed on .. I still didn't know.

2006-08-20T17:25:00.000-07:00

.. And then I died. It's a tragic story.

That's the first line from my The Man Multiplied story and I've been saying it off and on while on MSN and IRC, but never gave the context as to why or what it was from. The setup is basic sci-fi pulp; A man gets his brain copied into a digital format and confined to a very basic robotic body. The story jumps from the original and the digital copy, their conversations and seperate evolutions as one continues to live on and the other is confined to a lab. While this doesn't sound all that .. interesting, fresh, or anything of that sort, I do change it halfway through and at that point you can get an idea of who died and from what and why and all those other questions.

The new DJ Shadow started out strong, I really did enjoy the way the intro started it and I'm such a sucker for the old sounding songs ala the 2nd track, but from there on I really did not like it. Quite a let-down and I will unfortunately be passing by this one.

So now what? What happens now that we're a week away from the first official day of school?

Well .. I don't know.

Of course I'm nervous, if you've known me for a while you'd know why and from what, but it won't be that big of a deal. It's an hour busride each way, so I have to wake up quite a bit earlier that I'm used to and .. you know .. go to bed at some point. I really don't know what to expect yet. Whatever.

A piece of art I did for my writer/teacher friend currently residing in China, called 'I am a shallow grave' .. ooo undertones!

What's on my project plate for this last week of anti-schedule--
-The crazy short story about the woman who cuts off her right hand's fingers while in a coma and then must search out and merge with the surgeon who saved her life.
-The last few pages of detailing for Marmalade Girl Running.
-Re-scanning and editing the pages for Snow that were lost when my laptop decided it was hungry. Hungry for art.
-Tweaking and mastering a few more tracks, making some short 8-bit songs .. all in the name of the documentaries.
-Anything else? I don't know .. paintings? Random bits of art? I'll scan in some pages from my sketch books.

I never did bother to finish this piece .. should I?

2006-08-19T23:00:00.000-07:00

I guess I'll see you in my dreams, lads and ladies. A bit of almost finished art at the top there, I did finish it but that gives you the bulk. Where did it come from? What is its' purpose? I don't know and there's no purpose.

The new Outkast is exceptional. Very slick. That's all I'll say, can't wait for the 22nd so I can buy it.

Wires2 will be out soon, look for it on http://www.anal0g.org and have some musical fun.

Right now it's 2 am and I finished that piece. Now I'm inking the companion to that image and writing twisted things. I'll have to finish this post after I grab a bit of a nap.

2006-08-10T10:46:00.000-07:00

So my invisible chums, what has been going on at the good ship Here and Now, you might ask? Well, I would respond while sipping my tea loudly, nothing that you can see, ho ho!

Ho ho indeed, but my covetted lust for my art will be in shambles soon enough. I am 1 & 1/2 pages close to finishing a 15 page mini comic thing that I started .. years ago. When I finish the inking and detailing I will scan it in and clean it up, then you'll get to see it (some of it) here without the text. When the text is done and down I will link to the page I set up on my Cloudstage.com domain. I am also doing a digital and real watercolour piece for FJZone.org, but they're keeping a tight lease on that, so no goodies from that. The animation pitch is slowly going forth, but I'm trying to make money firstly as I start school in 18 days (28th of Aug for you lazy bastards) and .. well, I do like money, it just doesn't like me. Always making me spend it so it can get away .. to hell with you, legal tenders!

On the science side of things I have had a single Stacker (Version 2! Now with Ephedrine!) about 1.5 hrs ago. The initial onset was the feeling of burning lips and a bit of a rush, but has now calmed down to the point of increased focus on tasks, a clear idea of what I am trying to do (typing right now is a pure pleasure for some reason), and increased amounts of ADD feelings but not to the point of loosing focus, just other items piling up neatly and quickly on the To-Do list in my head. I feel overheated but I am not sweating my brains out. All of it is odd, and I think I'll make pancakes after I go mail some tech stuff to my Dad. Speaking of mail, my inking pens and new mini sketch books came. Yay for Curry's Art Supplies.

I may not have stated it before, but everyone who doesn't, should read The Escapist. Lovely E-Zine about gaming.

I have to go, but I'll shower you with things .. soon?

2006-07-14T17:04:00.000-07:00

Bored. This is all you're getting from this post, swine.

2006-06-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

Here's a page (half-finished) from the Snow comic I'm reworking. I was up until 7am this morning working on it and then my lovely computer decided to eat pages 4 and 5. I was not a happy camper.

So now I have to rescan the base images and edit them anew. Oh well, I guess that means I won't have it done as soon as I had hoped. I am debating whether or not I should leave it as is, without actual narration, or if I should not make it an exercise in artistic masturbation.

I'm working on an animation pilot with a good friend of mine, I'd scan in the character model sheets for you but I'm A) Lazy, B) Not going to do it. Not trying to be vindictive, I just feel that there should be a little more descretion on this project. But don't worry too much, I'll still have some neato things for you on it later on.

I have some sketches .. somewhere, but I've misplaced my sketchbook so it'll probably be after Canada Day weekend when I upload them. Speaking of which, I'm off to travel back to my home of Prince Edward Island for said weekend, visit friends and family, then drive back home. Wee.

Ahh let's see then. That sums up most of the projects I've been working on in the last week, had a bad case of food poisoning that set me back, but that's ok. I'll post some preview clips of the exclusive soundtrack I'm making for my good friend Jason Scott, maker of nerdy and interesting documentaries. Of late, http://www.bbsdocumentary.com and the new one currently being filmed is http://www.getlamp.com.

Oh yes, music collaborations will kick up once I have upward of 2 hrs of music done for the soundtrack. I can't not make music.

2006-06-22T12:14:00.000-07:00

Blahblahblah days have passed .. I know, but I have been working on things.

First up, my evolving workwall. Seen here are 8 thumbnail postits of an old comic I'm redoing and the story arc of a 3 part novella I'm working on. Next is a sample, unfinished, from previously mentioned comic.

I work downwards.

Anyway, busy be me, the lass and I are thinking of taking a drive back to Prince Edward Island for the weekend. We'll see how that pans out.

2006-06-15T14:47:00.000-07:00

There we go. Final version.

2006-06-15T00:49:00.000-07:00

We've got to stop meeting like this. 3.49 am and boring? I mean, come on! Hello folks who might or might not read this, here's a special post for everyone, but was started by one person. A friend of mine, Nihil, requested to see sketches of the commish i'm doing for him scanned in. I rejected that request and felt bad, so I offered instead to do a quick design up and go through the steps for him. This turned out to be an absolutely fabulous idea, so I put on some brazillian inspired jazz/lounge and did the following--

Step 1: The Sketching.
With my design work, I don't do any of the 'underlying shapes for the body' tricks, i just do basic angles and lines and connect. Unfortunately I can't quite get my scanner to pick up the subtle lines I draw. I take a dulled pencil (it has to be dulled) and do this up rather quickly, depending on the size. This one is in the middle of the page and is about half the page large.

Step 2: Basic Ink Lines.
This is a quick step, just identifying the major lines of the work and using my 0.5 Staedtler I've given them a bit more substance. This is a fairly basic tactic for a lot of artists out there, I'm sure. I bring nothing interesting to the table as far as tactics go.

Step 3: Details, details, details.
Now this is the best part for planning. Taking my 0.1 & 0.3, I've mapped out some key points I am keeping, changing, adding. I also flesh out other parts of the drawing with the dull pencil again, parts I am less sure about how they should look in the end.

Step 4: Patching & Plugging.
In reference to the white holes I'm filling up with nice, dark ink. This makes the last stage of detailing the easiest. Pick and choose the way you want it to look. There's really no secret to this part, I used a permanent marker for this part.

Step 5: Second-last detailing.
I take my pens, from 0.7 to 0.05, and fill in all the cracks left, add the last bits of detail, thicken the borders and tah dah. Last minute changes and smoothing occurs here. Now normally, I can do it all on the paper and that's that, but I used my sketchbook this time, so the pens don't come out as sharp as I'd like and I didn't feel like putting the effects and time I like to into this one (Hey, 4 am does that to a person) so it's passable, but not complete.

The last step for this is the final digital alterations. Adding in shades, splatter, off-colour portions and removing any 'fuzzy ink' lines. I'll finish that up tomorrow and post it for you. To be honest, it may not be tomorrow when it gets posted.

Anyway, this was a quick rundown for my designs on sketchbook paper. Next time, I'll do a step by step for a comic page .. or something. I'm going to saw some major trees now.

2006-06-09T23:00:00.000-07:00

Good very early morning one and all. You're in for a real .. treat (sudden eye sickness?) this time around. I spent the hard time and .. well, just the time .. anyway, I scanned in all these puppies for you (No actual puppies were smooshed and scanned during the scanning of this scan-scan). It's 2.08 am so shut it. The following bunch of sketchs are just random mishmashes of old and new. The first one there has the lead character of a comic series I have sitting in my file folder. The third one there has clothes for a short I am doing.

These really have no place to anything, just drawings for the sake of themselves and the act.

These are also just one-offs of daydreams wandering around and then out the tip of my drawing extensions. The froggie I made for my friend. His name is Magic_Silver_Box on the interland.

Ah let's see. The first one was going to be a painting later in life, not sure if I will just now, a family of warpy people .. superheroes maybe? supervillans? Whatever, a painting maybe.

These next two I made at a friend's house in under 30 minutes, at 2-3 am on different days, while having a ton of fun. Then we played Co-op Halo on Legendary for hours. Best. Time. Ever. (PS: Not a Halo Fanboy, don't talk to me about it as if I'd care)

And this last piece was done for a contest back on Prince Edward Island, where we had to draw our interpretation of an Orgasm. I didn't even taste the upper crusts of the winner's circle.

So that's that. I dug these babies up while looking for a comic panel and thought I'd share them with you all. The top ones are more recent than the bottom ones, as in I did the tops ones this year. Now then, I'm bushed.

Oh now, wait a moment .. I forgot three other commish's I finished today. Behold:

They're called 'Kings in the Clouds'.

I'm going to pass out now.

2006-06-09T13:32:00.000-07:00

Pictured above: Two commissions (or however it's spelled) done for friends back home. The first was drawn under the order of detail being 'Bat' .. that's all I had to work with. The second is a redux of an old Poster I did for a friend in High School as a 'Yay, it's finally over, damnit' present, based off the comic I used to drawn for him called Nick Gnome, where the Gnome would kill people oddly and painfully.

Not pictured above is the rooster I inked/painted for my grandmother for both her birthday and because I love my Gramms. I forgot to scan it before sending it. Sorry.

Soon to come: portrait works, gruesome yet beautiful deaths, and hands. Lots of hands.

2006-06-01T21:08:00.000-07:00

Can't talk now, writing scripts/backstories/dialog.

<3

Also, Alex Toth died ( www.tothfans.com )
I'm sad from that.

2006-05-28T00:59:00.000-07:00

I don't have much to say really. It's 4 am and I was busy writing when I remembered this. Sketches! I should put up some finished images soon too.

Hmm.

Well .. g'night.

2006-05-25T17:56:00.000-07:00

Talking points? Everyone who hasn't played Psychonauts (for consoles and the PC) should go out and get it. Buy, Rent, or Steal .. the method I couldn't care less about, just do it. Totally enjoyable platformer and really, really, really enjoyable level design. And the rest is top notch too, I mean fun graphics coupled with good dialog and challenges, who could ask for more?

I've found that a good number of people I've seen and know have been infected by an interest in that boring (in my opinion, calm down) painted cafe-front stuff. Really not my area of appreciation but it's seems that those I know are eating it up like a Chinese Buffet. I myself enjoy some good impressionist visuals .. know where I could get some?

That's all for tonight, I have to amuse my fiance now. Tomorrow I'll upload some biological images of the comic series that Dami, Nihil and I will be putting together. Squid people, mutants, and stretched humanity. Hoorah.

2006-05-24T09:19:00.000-07:00

Alright, so I got a bit pre-occupied with other things and remembered as I drifted off to sleep. Sue me.

Here are some hands to show I haven't been slacking. I have to redo a couple (damn you, bottled water) and then scan in the other odd drawings I've been toying with. Since I have to leave the house very shortly, I'll just cut it off here and update when I get home .. again.

2006-05-22T22:02:00.000-07:00

So it's been awhile, right? My fault in full as I am just plain lazy and forgetful but you were warned of that at the start.

Here are a few sketches for now, previously completed and scanned in now. Just oddness. And I promise a real update tomorrow, because I've got it all laid out and the .. erm 'Talking Points' all done too.

2006-05-16T09:30:00.000-07:00

I didn't sleep that much, had the drawing urge. Here're some odd additions and more hands, 10 down, 90 to go.

Other than that, I got my Wacom in the mail today (hoorah for eBay) and my grand schemes for today include scanning in some character sketches (some are odd deformities of the actual design, ie characters in place of them). On another note, I want more markers, because i'm starting to actually enjoy employing colours .. I still don't think i'm very good at it (and I'm not), but I'm learning to like it. Don't worry though, I still love me some black and white inkings.

Additionally, if you like odd art I would suggest checking out http://www.bibope.art.br/ruido/ and I wouldn't worry about trying to figure it out, I can't read it and don't think I really need to.

I'm gonna get me some cheap chocolate bars today. I love those dollar stores for making me a fatty.

2006-05-15T23:01:00.000-07:00

So I have decided to do something useful with this whole idea .. something constructive, something filched (idea-wise, calm down). I have put it upon myself to get better at drawing more realistic or realistic proportions at least. I will be drawing 100 hands, 100 feet, and 100 faces/facial expressions. This excercise was borrowed/stolen from http://www.dave-co.com/gutterzombie/viewtopic.php?t=5715 (oh, browse the site, absolutely amazing art all around) and more excercises will be borrowed as I come across them because they have got serious talent over there.

I will use my hands and the hands of my loved one at first, then I will use more photo reference from http://lockstock.deviantart.com (Thanks to Pach for pointing my harmful fingers at it), then I will eventually get a digital camera and turn my eyes, ears, and nose to architecture (Did I spell that right?).

On news of another kind, I can't be the only one that is happy in the pants at the thought of a new Kid Icarus, especially after drooling over this fake picture and the thoughts that accompany something this awesome. I searched for Kid Icarus in Google Images, so I forget where it's from .. something like NGFrance.com or somesuch.

On a final note, I'm sorry I didn't get around to scanning in my character sketches for the Sci-Fi animation I'm working on, Dave. I was playing Ninja Gaiden Black with my fiance. Soon, but I know you've heard that from me numerous times. I only fail to deliver when I can.

Regards.

2006-05-13T21:06:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple tonight to start, I don't have much to say, one's drawn from photo reference, the others are just random.

2006-05-13T15:41:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the maiden voyage of this ghost ship. My intent? To work at least 30 minutes on random sketching which I will post here, as well as animation learnings I hope to do, caricatures, links to finished animations, paintings .. you name it.

Some might ask, 'Russell, why didn't you just make a blog styled page on the two sites that you actually use already?' and I immediately think of witty things, such as 'Shut up!' or 'Because?'. The truth of the matter is that I want those sites to host certain aspects of finished (or the state I want them to be) works. Be it music (I don't like my own, you don't have to either) or strange artistic collaborations, most of them are not for this blog thing. This will, for the most part, be a vaguely half-thought out attempt at learning or at least keeping in the spirit of actually working on art.

So I start this grand exploit tonight but I must warn you beforehand, I'm terrible at keeping my word on these things. We shall see, maybe it'll help me get in gear.

Regards.