side-note

Blackyard.ch, check it out, some amazing stuff by a collaboration team of European Illustrators.

Art, the Final Frontier

I just needed to share this, because it made me squeal with glee. I was looking around on Drawn.ca this morning when I happened upon a post of Luke Butler. Words cannot describe how awesome I think these paintings are. As a professional nerd, I am not ashamed to say that I myself have drawn some Star Trek characters before, but never followed it through with the skill and vigor Luke is able to.

Boston Comic-Con?!

This has been a busy, busy month. Boston Comic-Con was nice, it's not a huge venue but the people there are always nice and you can have more intimate talks with the artists.

My friend and I received signatures and sketches from the legendary Tim Sale!! It was sweet, Tim's a really nice guy and I had a pretty nice conversation with him about his art and the fact that I'm an animation major.

I also met a Kent Archer, the inker for Dr. McNinja.com!!! (If you haven't seen Dr. McNinja, I highly recommend it, there's a link to it on my "Talented Individuals" window under the name "Chris Hastings")
He was crazy nice and I ended up chatting with him at his table for about a half an hour. He also did a full page sketch of a Spiderman bust in full color, FOR FREE! I felt guilty taking it so I bought one of their anthology books of the webcomic, which is sort of a win-win if you ask me.

The rest of the convention was pretty average, it never gets too huge or full of celebrities, and it's only a comic convention, not one of those huge all enetertainment venues like San Diego. I didn't buy any comics, BUT, I saw a Dr. Fate comic that re-sparked my love for Dr. Fate (you might be seeing some posts about Dr. Fate sketches in the near future, as I've become very interested in drawing him).

That's all for now, have a happy Halloween everyone!

OIAF News!

Well I have news for you! I got back from the Ottawa International Animation Festival (the second largest Animation festival in the world, or so I've been told) and it was wonderful! I met some amazingly talented people and saw some fantastic animations during my time in Ottawa.

It was my second and easily more successful year going to the OIAF. I schmoozed my ass off in the hopes of making some new contacts in the biz. I'm not holding my breath for any of the encounters to end up making a huge difference in my attempts to enter the Animation community, but it was certainly inspiring.

A big point of advice I got was to stay creative, always tell the story first, which is really motivating for me. That's why I became an Animation Major, I love telling stories and my biggest hope is that my artistic skill can match my overactive imagination someday. Also, quite a few people said it's important to know Flash and other computer animating programs, so I'll definitely get cracking on refining my Flash skills and hopefully finding the time to teach myself some After Effects and Toon Boom (once I find copies of both those programs).

I'm so ready for my art to hit the next level, too bad it's taking its sweet ass time getting there. Ah well, these things don't happen overnight and in the mean time I'm going to be enjoying every step along the path to Animation mastery! ho-HO!

Buh-bye for now, guys and gals.

Morrrre skteches

Because it's 1:30 in the morning and I have nothing better to do... :D
Everything but Green Lantern came from my mind, a dangerous place to be.

A different side project?!?!

When will it end?!

I've been throwing around ideas with a couple of friends about projects, I don't know if any of these will come to fruition, but I'm going to post the sketches just to show that I am in fact still alive.

I put the painting to the side for now, as I'm hitting somewhat of an artist's block with it. I have ideas I just don't know can't decide on a composition for any one that I'm happy with.


Trust me, it's better that I took poopy Photo Booth pictures than tried to scan them, my scanner is AWFUL.






And what is this? More than one update a year?! Truly a indication of the Rapture (the biblical event, not the band or bad movie starring Mimi Rogers).

Alright robot internet people! Keep with your 0's and 1's!

Side Project?!?!

Alright, I have no illustration classes this semester so I HAVE to do something to keep me from getting rusty.

I was thinking of doing a painting that will eventually be a Christmas gift for my dad. Since he's such a fan of WW2 I was leaning towards that subject.

I'll start posting process work and maybe people can critique it! I'm not getting my hopes up though.

New School Year!

Whew, I am most probably the worst blogger ever.

ANYWAY!

A new school year has reared it's 400 toothed ugly head. It hasn't officially begun, but I'm back in the dorms for RA training and the likes, so for all intents and purposes the summer has officially concluded for me. Which is just as well, this summer was a poop covered poop storm of boredom and complete unproductive mediocrity.

But that will all change this year as I'm going to be in hyper work mode. Being a CA, the Student Government Representative for Animation and going into my junior year is going to be horrific.

Hopefully I'll still be able to put out some good work because, believe it or not, animation is still the most important thing to me right now. Writing it, directing it, watching it, drawing it, thinking about it. I can't wait to see what I'll truly be capable of someday. But, one step at a time.

SO!

In conclusion.

That's how the dinosaurs died.

Springward Bound!

Heya there everybody. School work and RA commitments have been consuming my life as of life. However, I have found time to upload new stuff to my Youtube and Deviant Art accounts (please view the YouTube videos in High Quality/Definition or they look really crappy).

I'm really excited for next year, my schedule seems really good and I hope to take Bladesmithing in the Spring Semester (keep your fingers crossed when next November rolls around). I really hope to make something out of the Character Animation class I have, considering that's what I want to go into and all... I should be doing some keyframing for Animation II class right now, but procrastination is a bitch and I am her helpless prisoner, and I really don't know how to keyframe that well. D:

Bwaaah

I am no good at this blogging thing. I just forget! I have news and such and I just don't think to blog it. Well, here's a wrap-up of my recent doings:

I've been working my ass off in Animation and really want to hit the next step with my work. I'm tired of all these pencil tests and abstract collage animations. I'm gonna try to do some more work in flash to get a more finished look out of my animations.

I'm getting more comfortable with my illustration style, well, at least a little more confident in my abilities. My biggest illustration crux is just pure laziness. I've really been pushing myself recently though and I'm pretty happy with the things I've been turning out. I'm going to start posting more on my deviant art account (http://www.johnnyink.deviantart.com/) so you guys can check that out soon!

I am an RA now for the Artist Residents and I have recently received news that I have been rehired for next year too! So that'll really help with living costs and such as well as another nice addition to my resume. I'll also finally be able to go through RA training (since I was hired mid-year due to the previous RA quitting) so I think I'll be able to do a lot more to help the Res Life staff and the students, which will be immensely rewarding unto itself.

I also volunteered to become the Student Government representative for Animation next year. My biggest reason is so I can lobby to put more technology-based classes into the Animation curriculum (which you can ask any MassArt Animation major is the biggest weakness of the department).

My friend Mr. Jason Flinkstrom and I are also in the talks about starting up a webcomic about a very silly/awesome concept of future interdimensional assassins, he has written the first few pages of the first issue and I pencilled some tests. I also have recruited the help of the very talented individuals Tim Prendergast (to do inks) and Lauren St. Onge (to do colors) so I think there may actually be some potential in this.

I have yet to hear back from ANY of my internship applications :( . Looks like I'll be working retail this summer, c'est la vie. If anyone has heard of anything, or would be interested in my sevices as an intern, I have a wide range of abilites and think I could really help in almost an situation.

I think that's it for now, I hope everyone has a St. Patrick's Day, I'll be celebrating my birthday soon enough (the big 2-0 D:) which will be... cool? I don't know, birthdays never really struck me as anything that important. I know I always say this, but I will try to post more often, even if it's mundane.

Not so new beginnings

Weeeeelllll, howdy... Yeah, that comic thing isn't going to happen if you haven't figured it out yet. Nick totally welched on me and is just sitting around with his thumb up his butt, hopefully just figuratively. But to be fair, I'm not exactly shooting finished comics out of my figurative butt either.

So anywho, 2009 has been a busy year thus far and I know I'm going to be learning a whole crap ton this semester which has me all excited and sweaty... I should probably see someone about that...

One big thing, I've recently officially become an RA at the Massart dorms, due to the previous RA deciding she doesn't think art school is her thing (deciding this after attending here for 5 semesters...) so I was offered the job, since I'm such a stand up guy.

I'll pause for laughter.

I hope everyone had super exciting holidays and that 2009 is as awesome as 2008 was, if not more! This is going to be a big year, and if anyone has internships they wanna let me in on, like, assisting a warlock or high-leveled druid, I would be aaaall over that, in fat kid v. cake style.

I'll try to write more blogs, but I probably won't because I rarely have exciting things to say. Bye everyone and GoBama!