Tale #20 - The Tale Of Rodent And Ninjas

Hi, all!

I guess it's no big secret that a certain 3D animated rodent/cooking themed movie is comming out today. So I'm going out this weekend to see it. But here's what I've been hearing - the movie is out on the P2P networks already. I also had the chance to read this quote by Brad Bird and he totally sounded angry about this. So I decided based on that, to do a bit of public service today and give a bit of a helping hand. So to those under the age of 10yrs in this audience, please AVERT YOUR EYES OR FACE NINJA FILLED HORROR! YOU KNOW HOW THEY LOVE TO FLIP OU! EEEEIIII! To the rest of you, please click and READ!




.......


.............


................


..... yes. Ninjas WILL hunt you down if you do that. Besides, you know Ninjas always win over pirates. So please, think of the artists and other media geeks out there who are suffering at the hands of these pastey rum-filled evil doers and DON'T pirate cool movies.

And that's today's public service thingy. Oh! And to those under the age of 10, you can stop averting your eyes now. Why? Because the daily sketches are comming up RIGHT NOW!


It's a set of nicely EVIL eyes LOOKING RIGHT AT YOU! EEEEIIII!


Okay... the rooster was very spontanious. But hey, it's about time I drew some avian creatures!


Another Steeleing 6 sketch of Kam Steele. She looks kinda bored. XD


Beware! It's the strange looking tree from the 50s/60s! Actually, it looks more like a circuit board tree. You know.... a CircutTree! Okay.... yeah... that was bad. XD

And in celebration of a certain rodent themed cooking movie, I came up with a few rodent-type critters of my own!



And.....


Aww.... aren't they cute? Don't you wanna pick them up and pet them? Sure you do! Who wouldn't?

Anyways, it's Canada Day weekend and I may not be able to upload any sketches during that time. But I will on tuesday! Promise! And to all of you - HAPPY CANADA DAY ON JULY 1ST! ^^

Tale #19 - The Tale Of Collecting

Hi, all!

Anyways, remember when I said that I collected minature board games earlier? Well... just to show that I wasn't joking, I took pictures of them with my NinjaCam! (Although... beware of the quality!) I also collect minature cards too. And as you can see... I also own a deck of ROUND playing cards too. Yup... I said it! ROUND!









Just to give a sense of scale of some of the game pieces, cards and the boards themselves.....






Yup! Pretty small, aren't they? Of the collection I've got, I also have 3 badgamon boards in there along with some unusual odd ones too. One of those odd ones is a Soccer game in a board game format. I saw this in a Dollar Store once and it was pretty unusual so I had to pick it up. XD So as you can obviously see, I so wasn't joking about them OR their size. ^^

Tale #18 - The Tale Of Programmers

Hi, all!

Today instead of sketches, you're all in for a very special treat! What is that treat, you might ask? What if I told you it was these very sweet and tasty fortune cookies I made? What if I also said that if you tried them, you'd never gain any weight again and they've got no callories or bad transfats? Well.... they do exsist and I've created them! OBSERVE!



Ta da! The perfectly healthy digital fortune cookies! Anyways, this is something I programmed in Flash 8 and had a bit of fun with. All the graphics that are in this are completely done by me by hand. That includes the dragon watermark. ^^

So now do you wanna play with it? Well since I can't post it in the blog directly, I'll just give you the geocities link to it instead - Eat up!

Oh... if you're wondering about how it runs under the hood, it's using XML to generate the fortunes. ^^

Tale #17 - The Tale Of Tags

Hi, all!

I'm going to get to the daily sketches later today, but right now I've sorta been tagged by Erin Blanquet at her blog (And she did say "you" as in anyone reading at that point in time so it's kinda generic so I'm going to do it anyways.) So here's the rules:

Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Okay.... since I really don't know anyone right now, I'm going to tag all of you who are reading right now. Yeah, YOU! Besides, these things are fun so you might wanna get in on this anyways.

so.... drum roll please!

EIGHT THINGS YOU MIGHT WANNA KNOW ABOUT KAMUI.EXE (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER) :

1.) I own two cats (Both are Siamese) and one dog (A springer spaniel). I used to have two dogs until one of them passed away last month. (And I still miss her.)

2.) Can speak/read/write French. Yup! I'm biligual. I've even got a little French phrase I whip out whenever I'm confused on something - "Je suis perdu!" (Translation: "I'm lost!" )

3.) Has a collection of pocket board games. You know.... the kind that are magnetic and fit in the palm of your hands? That kind!

4.) Learned to touch type by storytelling/storywritting. I mean I royally sucked at Mavis Beacon typing tutorials and there was no getting better with it either no matter how hard I tried. It was quite discouraging for me. But since I found that writting stories by hand was seriously cramping them badly (and I was doing a lot of writting too!) I looked over at my computer and decided to open up the word processor to write stories with. It was through storywritting was that I started to get much fast and much better at typing. Right now, I'm extremely fast at it with great accuracy too.

5.) Owns a guitar. Yeah... sure do! It's an Ibanez Roadstar II. Got it for 300$ CAN in near mint condition. It was an awesome deal. Incidentally, I'm also getting a small portable organ that's also in near mint condition that originally cost 4,000$ CAN but I'm getting it for free because it was given to us by a friend of the family. However, this doesn't mean I've got any form of musical talent outside of Sony ACID 5.0.

6.) Owns a Wii. And I absolutely love it.

7.) Likes going out for 10 minute walks each day. When you spend a lot of time sitting down at a computer, a walk is a good thing. Trust me.

8.) Can naturally speed read. I read stuff about almost as fast as I can type them which is very fast. And the thing is, I can't help it either. Incidentally, stories and books have always been a part of my life anyways since my dad read them to me (or told them to me) when I was two years old.

So yup! That's eight facts about me. So now it's up to you to pass this along to someone else because after all, I tagged YOU, right? So let's get crack-a-lacking, okay?

See you all later!

Tale #16 - The Tale Of More Sketches

Hi, all!

Yesterday's thunderstorm was a horrible one! It knocked out the power about 5 times! So now I'm back and it's nice and sunny out so that means that I've got power. ^^ So anyways, here's some more daily sketches as I promised you all.


This was a stylized cat I did. Although, I'm not liking the proportioning of the eyes. The proportioning was way off! That's what I get for drawing in low light levels.


This is just a quickish sketch of a lamp I've got.


I'll tell you all right now that I'm not fond of hard H or 2H leads. I just don't feel I'm at my best with them. I tend to stick to either HB, B, 2B or any other softer leads. Anyways, this is Kam from Steeleing 6 and she's playing a Japanese instrument. Oh! And just for the record, that's a type of kimono and NOT a dress. Oh.... and incidentally, I know I screwed up one of her thumbs. I haven't screwed up thumbs like that in years! Whoa.... that sorta came outta no where. I probably had a brainless moment there....


Okay... this is a landscape speed sketch. Now I've also put the original picture (Well... mostly original. That one was taken in April 2007. So uh... that's a dated image... but it's close enough) to give an idea of what I was sketching. What I was planning to do was add way more detail and make this look prettier. But here's was transpired - lots and lots of large and very ugly insects! And... THEY WERE EVERYWHERE! Yeah.... I'm not fond of bugs either for the most part and these ones that I'm talking about were unusually large, highly clumbsy, most-likely-to-land-on-your-head-and-ruin-your-day, extremely ugly beetle types and they kept trying to land on me and my artwork (And no doubt in my mind that like most insects around here... they probably bite too. Ugh! Don't like that either). So what was supposed to be a pretty sketch turned in to a 30-second speed sketch before I quickly got up and got out of there. Now it's totally okay if there were one or two insects like this flying around. I wouldn't exactly mind. But there was way more than that and there were loads of them! Luckily, I didn't get bitten by anything, so I got out of this unscathed. Thank god!

Tale #15 - The Tale Of Sorry

Sorry about the daily sketches today, guys. My scanner is acting a little wonkey because of the storm that got me. I'll try and make up for it tommorrow! Promise!

And just for the record, I was seriously planning to do a major sketchdump on the 15th blog post because it's a nice little landmark there. Well... I guess I'll save it for post #16 or maybe something at post #20.

Sorry for the mess, guys.

Tale #14 - The Tale Of Thunderstorms

Hi, all! Just a small post for now as a brief update. The brief update is that there's a thunderstorm brewing outside my window. So if my power cuts out for some reason and you see no sketches posted, don't be supprised. The lightening probably kicked it out. So yeah.... you've been warned! XD

Tale #13 - The Tale Of Owed Sketches

Hi, all!

Anyways, before the daily sketches, I wanna let you guys know something. (And I totally know you're all out there! You can be as quiet as mice, but I know you're there still! XD ) What I wanna point out was that I've updated my link list. Yeah... okay... so I'd usually ask if you wanna be linked or not, but this time I'm going to try something a little different and link up first and ask questions later and see how that one goes for a while. So if you're on the list, awesome! If you're not and you'd like to be, PLEASE submit a comment on this blog. I mean seriously, you guys are a quiet bunch!

Anyways, on to the daily sketches:


Scotty Dog


The Blue Colar Rabit


Lou The Happy Trucker

So the story behind all these drawings? Well... I didn't exactly go on a roadtrip, but we did drive around out in the bushy areas of the city. Yeah... lots of bush out there. XD But anyways since I wasn't driving this time and someone else was, I just started drawing and sketching away for a little bit and these are what came out. I finished off Lou at the end of the drive after seeing all these huge semi-haulers around and using the highways. The truckers and other travalers tend to use our city as a short cut in order to get to other places like Winnipeg, Manitoba or Duluth, Minnistota or something. XD

Tale #12 - The Tale Of Toes

Hi, all!

Sorry, guys. No daily sketches because I can't access a scanner but I'll make up for it on monday. I promise you guys that one. Anyways, I came back from watching Happy Feet on DVD. Interestingly enough, it's sorta the subject of one of today's discussions.

When I watched it, the animation was for the most part polished (although, the characters really couldn't portray expression very well in their character models. The expressions still came off unnatural.) and from that perspective, I can see why people could have been easily wow'd by this film. But for people like me, that's only scratching the surface. There was one major thing this film seriously sucked at - STORY! The movie's story was weak and even a touch boring. It was sorta like trying to make a broadway musical of "March Of The Penguins" and end up falling terribly flat. A story MUST have flow to it and move viewers/readers from Point A to Point B smoothly without leaving a whole hord of questions at the end or leaving the viewer/reader more confused than when they came in to this. Happy Feet did an excellent job of confusing me. As an example (SPOILER! Avert your eyes!) in the final scene when they let Mumble go back to the wild. They didn't explain the hows (and stuff) of it all. He just spontaiously appeared back at his home at the end saying pretty much "Yo! I'm back from the aliens now!" It was so much of a hasty jump that it confused me. All in all, I felt cheated of a story. If you don't believe me on the power of story and storytelling, try blindfolding yourself when you play Happy Feet again. Now does it have that same power? How's the story? Happy Feet can't stand up and keep its' head above water. The only thing that saved that movie was the animation, but their flaw was was trying to let the technology and the computers tell the story. Computers don't tell stories. People do. And Happy Feet, there were no humans telling the story or making a great story.

So it makes me think back to something Atari once said - "You can put s*** in a box and it will still sell." Now this was proven wrong with the major flop of E.T: The Game, but with Happy Feet, I can't help but to feel that there's a grain of truth to what Atari said. Happy Feet had a wonderful "box" with the "box" being its' animation. But what was inside the "box" was poor story but people bought this movie up because of how pretty the "box" was. The story was quite weak and could confuse you easily if you weren't careful. This was the computer's movie and not the human's and it's quite a sad thing. Computers are there to help tell the story, but they can't tell it for you. People animate. People create. People tell stories. And the computers never do nor should they.

So long and short of it, Happy Feet had good animation but had a crappy story. So a message to all you people out there - Computers can't tell or create stories worth a damn. It's the people behind them that do. So please when you watch a movie with excellent animation, please also pay attention to the story too because the story is just as important for without it, there's nothing to animate.

End uh... long and serious debate-type thingy. Uh.... yeah... XD

Tale #11 - The Tale Of Time Traval

Hi, all!

Well.... today I haven't got much to say except to post the daily sketches. Well... today's sketches aren't so much sketches as it is what I've DONE to them.... or what I've done to my sketchbook that is. So what exactly did I do? I painted it! OBSERVE!



Ta dah! See? I painted it! Before this point, my sketchbook was entirely black and it frequently got confused with my sister's sketchbooks. So to tell them appart, I painted mine. However, I have yet to decide what to paint on the back of it, though. I might do some 50s style retro logo. The image painted on here is based off an old vector graphic I did in 2006. Here's the original....



Anyways as a note on this graphic, I did this for a friend on a now defunked project. The Mauna Lua is an actual restaurant in the 50s. It was extremely popular back then. I think it burnt down or something eventually and the owners lacked the funds to rebuild so now all that's left of it is the foundation of where it once stood. While it was in buisness, it had this major tiki/beach theme. So this vector graphic is a new retro-modern take on the old Mauna Lua restaurant.

And now, boys and girls, time for a bit of time traval with today's post! Now as you all may or may NOT be aware of, computer graphics have been a major part of my life since I first introduced to digital graphics when I was a little kid in the late 1980s/early 1990s. What I had back then was this huge tablet that plugged in to your TV set. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember for the life of me what it was called. I also wish I hung on to it too. Anyways, about 1997 was when I got my first tablet which was the Wacom ArtPad II (it also came with another program called Dabbler II. Although, I still believe that Dabbler is the old precursor to Corel Painter. There's just way too many similarities between these two programs!) It was when I got it did I ever make the major leap in to the computer graphics scene. Since then, I've been rocking out the pixel-box and learning whatever I can about the strange(ly awesome) world of digital media.

Yeah.... you could also argue I was a wee bit of an oddball growing up. Here I am interested in media while everyone else was interested in Barbie dolls and G.I. Joes. Er.... wait... actually, when I wasn't geeking out, I did play with Barbies.... only not in the typical way you'd expect a six-year-old girl would. All my Barbies were actually these superheros and they were always battling the forces of evil in the form of an evil tennis player. So uh... I guess you can strike the Barbie part from the record because I did have an interest and did play with them.... but not in the typical play-house sorta way. But anyways, at those times, it wasn't typical for a little kid to be toying around with graphics. But here I was, toying with graphics weither they'd be on the TV screen or on the computer. XD

So now that we've got that bit of history outta the way, here's some artwork I dug up from days past!



This is Herbie which I digitally painted in the year 2005. I wanted to try my hand at realism again and Herbie was one of my favourite classic movies, so I created this. This was done in ProCreate Painter (Before it was Corel Painter) using my newer Wacom tablet - the Graphire 3!



This was also from the year 2005, a vector graphic of Huge Laurie. This was done in illustrator entirely by hand. The blue eyes were there so you'd be looking the graphic "in the eye" like you would for a living person. It also catches you a bit off guard too since it's the only thing in colour.



This is a rather old (And horribly out of proportion! Ick!) and silly super villian I came up with called "The Puzzler." Now this strange character pays a bit of homage to the origional Riddler from the Batman series only with a twist. The Puzzler is a strange little man who loves Crossword puzzles or any of those word styled puzzles you're likely to find in your local newspaper along with The Funnies section. As you can imagine, he has equally strange weapons for dispaching his foe. This includes the poison pencil in his hat which has REAL lead in it along with a deadly medly of other dangerous poisons. His other weapons include, a giant pen in which he writes something and it comes to life. (As you can imagine, he's a very fast writter!) and "The Crossword Book of Mystery" in which it's full range of attacks and powers are mostly unknown to everyone else except The Puzzler himself. Some of the rumored powers include, toxins storage and Crossword Wraps (Which jump out of the book and bind it's target to tightly that he/she can't move and are rendered immobilized). He was created in early 2006. Like I said before, the proportioning is horrible and it looks quite bad, but as for the colouring and the crazy retro-vector styling, it looked good. What can I say? I love the retro look! ^^

So that's a quick look back in time with me and my geekyness.

Now speaking of time trips and what we were like when we're kids, it's often an awesome time to get in touch with our inner child. Having a sense of fun about you (especially in the media arts!) is something you should never lose no matter how old you are. I mean I'll still play with RC cars and action figures from time to time and even someone like John Lassater has pictures of him with a few toys flying through the air like super heros. So you all, do yourself a favour and don't lose that sense of fun. If you lose your inner child, it's only then can you ever truely grow old.

So this is a perfect sagway in to some funny interesting and really goofy items I've found on the internet. Here's what I've found that gave me a bit of a giggle!

http://www.perpetualkid.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1669&dc=shoppingcomtrack
(An Actual banana phone! Yes.... they DO exist! Also... perfect if you're an inspector Gadget in-training.)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/science/81e6/
(A desktop catapolt and war stuff to fling paper balls with)

http://www.perpetualkid.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=864
(Your very own army of ninjas!)

http://www.perpetualkid.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1155
(A rocket pen. I guess THIS was what the astronaughts were using to write with in space!)

http://tinyurl.com/257a4e
(I actually own one of these. They call them keychain cameras but I prefer the term "Ninja camera." )

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/rc/934c/
(These things are cute as they are cool. They're palm-size helicopters)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/8fce/
(A floppy journal. I'm going to see if I can make one of these.)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/80fc/
(It's an Atari keychain. It's cute and geeky!)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/science/9617/
(This falls under the catagory of cool stuff if anything else. It's a build-your-own game consol kit. )

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/warfare/8a0f/
(If trebuchets aren't your thing, plug this in to your Mac or PC and let the fun fly.)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/japanfan/9116/
(Okay... this is a doomsday device. Use with caution!)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/japanfan/87cc/
(RC SUMO DUDES!)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/rc/8b7b/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/rc/924e/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/rc/8698/
(I think it's no supprise that I also like RC things too. ^^)

Well.... that's my list of interesting internet geek finds. I had a few more, but I misplaced the links. oh well! This should be enough to tide you all over! XD

Tale #10 - The Tale Of The Sketchers

Hi, all!

As promised, I would be posting the daily sketches. Although, I wanna remind you all out there that if you see anything interesting in any of my posts and wanna make comments or something on it, please don't hesitate to do it. I always check for them and I'll always reply no matter how old the post is.

Now on to the daily sketches! I'm going to try a new upload method this time, so bear with me.



Again... this is part of my mostly top secret project. I'm designing costumes for one of my characters.



This is a cat's eye I drew. As I was drawing, I had my cat curled up right next to me so I drew her eye. She has beautiful eyes. Also, I wanted to show you guys that yes, I CAN do realism.



This is a perfume bottle I had. It's made of this strange frosted plastic. Anyways, again... proof that I can do realism.



Okay... I saw this guy walking around and I was out practising. And when I'm practising, anything and anyone is fair game. So this time, it was this guy and let me tell you... he was a big muscular guy! I dunno how much he could bench press in one sitting, but it was probably a gurantee that it would be a lot!




This is an image of Kam and Mar together. In this one, Kam is (Literately) being sweept off her feet in one of Mar's overly enthusiastic "bear hugs." However, despite his size, he seems to think that he can give anyone a friendly hug and they'd be okay. However, what he forgets to account for is his incredible strength and paying the hospital bills!

Anyways, see you all later!

Tale #9 - The Tale Of Thumbnails (IMPORTANT!)

Hi, all!

Well.... I thought of one more way that I can improve upon my blog here and that's to use small placeholder images and put the actual link to the image underneith it. The reason why I did this is so that the page could load faster for you guys and you won't be fustrated by any wait times. Yeah.... I knew about that sorta thing but I also managed to goof up on it too. I'm totally sorry about that! So now the page should load up faster and much more nicely for you. Now as for the daily sketches... I'll be adding those later today. So just sit tight, okay? Thanks!

Tale #8 - The Tale Of Knowledge

Hi, all!

Well.... Other than sketches, photography, 3D, life stuff and the occasional comic page, I figured that I'd start to fan outwards and work on tutorials. I was thinking that I would like to start on tutorials about art theory since I know that inside and out and those tutorials won't become as dated as easily.

So my major question to you guys is this - What would you consider telling an artist who's just learning how to draw? Any suggestions?

Tale #7 - The Tale Of Talkers

Hi, all!

Well.... I've been doing some reading and getting a wee bit of feedback on "Tales Of A Media Geek" (FINALLY!) and I've heard that someone wanted me to tackle a political subject. The thing is with politics is that I can talk about them, but they aren't all that interesting to talk about.

So just let me get this one bit out in the open before I keep on going - Almost all polticians creep me out. There are very few who don't creep me out at all. But these days, almost all of them do. So there's one reason why I don't like talking about politics much unless it's if I notice something funny about them. (EI: If they have a big nose or something. Ehhh... because I draw so much, I tend to notice things like that. I really can't help it either! XD ) The other reason why I don't like talking politics is because you're pretty much rehashing the same issues over and over again. I mean there are only so many ways to say the same stuff, right? So When it comes to that, I can talk about it but I also get bored by it. So I really can't keep my mind on it for very long.

Lastly is that EVERYONE talks politics. I mean almost every blog I've ran across will talk about it or elaborate on it. I want my blog here to be something different and not have to talk about politics. Everyone else has the whole politics thing covered, right? Why do you need to hear about it here when you've pretty much heard about it elsewhere?

So there's a few reasons why I won't tackle politics. But what I will tackle is the arts, animation, media, a few wacky stories, fun stuff, comics, and maybe even toss up a few tutorials for you as well. I wanna keep this much more of a fun and lighthearted thing. If I tackle something serious, it'll be one of those rare things and only for a short time before I move on to something else.

Anyways, speaking of moving on, now's time for SKETCHES OF THE DAY! So here's today's selection!


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/CatAndChase.jpg

This is just a few quick sketches of Chase (House) and a cat I drew while watching House last night. I had my sketch book right there with me while watching and this is what came out!


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/Marcel.jpg

This is the monster character I was talking about for "Steeleing 6." His name is Marcel Awnster but everyone just calls him "Mar." Mar was originally in "A Monster's Life" but after the movie was finished, he continued working for SixAir as their resident IT guy. After I finished drawing him, he really came to life for me in my mind. In my mind, I can even hear what his voice sounds like. To me, he'd sound a lot like Dom DeLuise when he was in "All Dogs Go To Heaven."

Now as a note on SixAir, I'd like to point out that Mar, like all the other characters SixAir animated, exsists in both the computer AND in the real world. So at the same time he's a living being as well as a bunch of ones and zeros. There's an extremely good reason for this, but I'll leave that up to your imagination. ^_~


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/GraveYard.jpg

Heh! Now here's me with my camera of choice! Anyways, this was taken back when there was still plenty of snow on the ground but there's was a huge chunk that was melting that was creating these ankle deep puddles. When I took this, my feet were soaked and cold, my face was frozen, my hair was turning to straw with the wintery-winds and yet..... I was still happy and having fun! The shot was extremely beautiful and it was one of those one time deals that I had to take no matter what. So I did. Anyways, what makes this interesting is that the graveyard appears to extend on forever and that it's incredibly big. But you couldn't be farther from the truth. In reality, about 15-20 feet away from the last tombstone you see in the distance is a chainlink fense and the highway. But it certainly doesn't look like it, now does it? It's as I always say "It's in how you frame it!" Depending on how you frame and set up your shot, you can create different illusions like I did here with the mist.

Anyways, that's all for now!

Tale #6 - The Tale Of Random Ideas

Hi, all.

I guess I've been doing some thinking for a little while. Recall how I said my city had a major creativity shortage and that there's no storytellers left besides my family? Well.... I was thinking and what pretty much came to mind is that perhaps for a little while, I should stop looking for what I can't find here. If I just keep looking for it and not find it, I will just be setting myself up in this vicious cycle of continuous disappointment. Instead, there's only one place I can find it right now and that's with me and the people closest to me. So I have to be the major creative one and be the storyteller here locally. As part of that plan, I hope to publish a children's book. You know.... the kind with text and matching pictures? Yeah.... that kind. I mean as it is right now, the book industry is looking for the next Harry or something and it looks like they might want some fresh new material anyways. So now seems like as good of time as any to make the attempt at getting published.

So here's how the mission stands:

OBJECTIVE #1 - CREATE CHILDREN'S PICTURE/STORY BOOK
OBJECTIVE #2 - KICK ASS AT IT
OBJECTIVE #3 - GET PUBLISHED

I'm not planning for a local publisher or anything. (Our local publishers = IP thieves! And maybe just thieves in general.... and I'm totally not joking.) But I'm going to try for a bigger one and see how it goes. You never know unless you try, right? So I'm going to do my best. The one thing about stories and storytelling is that stories are meant to be shared with others and not just kept to yourself. So I'll give it my best shot and see where it takes me.

Tale #5 - The Tale Of Toons

Hi, all!

Not much going on today. And ditto goes for the artworld. But I do have a little bit of Photography. Yeah! That's right! Drawings and sketches arn't the only thing I do; I do photography as well! So you guys are getting a wee bit of a mix bag today! OBSERVE!


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/Ducks1.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/Ducks2.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/Ducks3.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/Ducks4.jpg

Ah yes! Beloved Canadian icons. Now all these were taken by my friend's camera which is not my usual camera for this kind of photography (My camera is a Canon Rebel EOS - 2006 model ). My friend had an old Fuji FinePix which only allowed shooting up to about 3 megapixels. But because we had a small card, we could only do .3 megapixels. Anyways, I saw some geese near by a lake and I thought I could take some awesome pictures of them. So here I am creeping through the reeds and things to get a better shot because the zoom on our camera wasn't that great. Now as I was getting closer, at a certain point, the geese saw me but stayed still and didn't seemed all that bothered. By the time I got about five feet away, several things came to mind. One of those things was that I was pretty damn sure that if I moved even an inch closer, they'd attack me, the feathers would fly, and I would be done for. You see, what most people are unaware of is how ornery Canadian geese can get. These guys can get pretty vicious. Oh! And you really shouldn't feed these guys either. They just get worse and they leave this geese guana mine field later which looks pretty much like someone let loose a thousand chiwawas everywhere! But thank god they didn't attack me at all. They were just used to humans was all that is was. They eventually got in to the water and swam away in the end calmly.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/Steeleing6SKETCH3.jpg

This is another "Steeleing 6" sketch. I can't help but to feel that I goofed up a few things here. It just doesn't seem intense enough. It sorta falls a bit short of what I originally had in mind.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/Steeleing6SKETCH4.jpg

In "Steeleing 6," this is the main character from "A Monster's Life." But he looked way better in my head than he did on paper. Right now he seems like Cookie Monster only with pants and some weird geek-gear on his head. So I'm definately thinking of changing the design and making him much more bear-like instead. I also STILL don't have a name for this guy.

Anyways, I'll see you all later!

Tale #4 -The Tale Of Traffic

Hi, all! Just a quicky post! Anyways, as you can see I've got a link list going of cool stuff on the web. I want to post more about other artists or handy tutorials. So if you've got some cool links or if you're another artist that wants to be linked, feel free to send a comment my way and I'll check it out. Free traffic is always good traffic, right? XD

Tale #3 - The Tale Of The Chocolate Factory

Hi, all!

Anyways, I see you're all much more interested in viewing my blogger profile than the actual blog itself. Eh? I'm royally confused. Is my profile really that interesting? ^^; You've gotta tell me what it is because I'm getting way more hits on my profile than my blog! Je suis perdu! Aiii! XD

Well... on to the sketches of the day and I've got a huge sketch dump for you along with a nice little supprise! BEHOLD!


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/SketchBook.jpg

Just a Raptor done in the fusion style. And incase you're wondering, that's NOT hair.... it's stylized feathers! ^^;


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/SketchBook2.jpg

These are just some random doodles.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/SketchBook1.jpg

These are just abandoned costume designes from a now defunked project.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/SketchBook4.jpg

Another random sketchbook page. WARNING! Some of these sketches are dead horrible. The proportioning and characterization is off in quite a few of them. ^^;;


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/SketchBook5.jpg

Just a Greek Guy I sketched once.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/SketchBook7.jpg

A Stylized Canadian shield logo. I based this off a logo I saw on a beer can I saw.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/SketchBook6.jpg

He's just a random characterization sketch. I called him "Sargee." ^^



This is an Asian ink drawing I did of one of my cats. I saw her curled up on the chair next to me, so I drew her.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/SketchBook16.jpg

This is yet another random sketch page. I was practising characterization again.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/SketchBook15.jpg

Believe me when I say the man has NOTHING to do with that pencil. I was just practising characters again. ^^;;


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/SketchBook12.jpg

This is a character from another project I'm working on. However, I am going to say that the details of this project are top secret for now. ^^; So SHHH! No telling! XD


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/SketchBook3.jpg

This is a very special sketch to me because I drew this on the day a fourlegged family member died. She was with me for almost my entire life and she was always young at heart no matter how old she became. She was always happy and carefree. I don't think I could have asked for anything better. Her name is Checkers and this is what she looked like. I still miss her quite a fair bit.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/SketchBook11.jpg

This is a characterization of a certain Pixar dude that we all know - John Lassater. He's an awesome storyteller. I really like how he tells stories and well... I've always wanted to tell stories just as well. It's because of people like him, I always try to strive and move that much farther in the way I tell stories and the way I draw. I've always grown up with a pencil in hand and a story in my head. But when I see his work, I'm pretty much like "Yeah. I wanna get as good as that!" So I keep practising and try to get better. As far as this picture goes, it's also practise but also a nod to him as well.




NOW HERE'S THE SUPPRISE SKETCHES!


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/Steeleing6SKETCH2.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/Steeleing6SKETCH1.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/Kamui.EXE/Steeleing6WIP1.jpg


What's all this about, you might ask? Well! It's for a new project, "Steeleing 6." So here's the info:

Sixair has always been described as being like Wonka's Chocolate Factory, but what if it really was? Meet Kamron "Kam" Steele, a 23 year-old media artist who's currently on the hunt for a new job when she mysteriously recieves a free 1 day pass to Sixair Studios in the mail. Having always wanted to see Sixair, Kam makes the trip to Annieville to follow up on this once in a lifetime opportunity. When she gets through those doors, she discovers how accurate people are in describing what Sixair is really like.


And here's some extras:

KAMRON "KAM" STEELE

- For some reason, every media related buisness she's gone to always seems to go under within just a few months of hiring and it's not even her fault! So since the industry is very small, word gets around pretty fast about how unlucky she is. So as to why Sixair gave her the pass remains a mystery.
- Can be a little skeptical at times.
- She's also quite talented as a storyteller and artist, but even with that, she'll admit that she's got a lot to learn.
- Based very loosly off myself. There's lots of stuff that she does that I won't do. XD LOL!

JAY .E. CATSSITER

- The head of Sixair studios.
- Never seems to get angry or upset. He's quite jovial and is often seen in some crazy costume or outfit.
- Has lots of action figures on his desk.
- I picture him being voiced by Adam West for some reason. XD LOL!
- His name is actually a merger of John Lasseter's and E. Catmull's names who are at Pixar.

SIXAIR STUDIOS

- It's an animation studio that's produced a lot of hit films.
- Seems to have an unusual magical quality about it. (More unusual than you think!)
- The main building is in Annieville, USA.
- Sixair is based off of Pixar. However, Sixair's main production facillity is much larger.
- Their main logo is an old school cell phone.
- Annieville, USA is loosely based off of Emmeryville.
- On Sixair's main turf is several swimming pools, dorms, a few small corner stores, a post office, a miniputt course, a gocart course, a coffee shop, the cafeteria, a huge hedge maze (Heaven forbid if you get lost in there!), a few arcades, pool tables, air hockey tables, a few Wintenda Xii 60 consols, a bowling alley, a huge sound and animation studio, and other major production studios involved in the film making process. It's often said you can practically live at the main facility.
- Several of Sixair's movies include: Monster Trucks (2006), A Doll Story (1995), A Monster's Life (1999), Citrouille (2007).
- It's extremely hard to get a 1-day pass at Sixair. You often have to be wealthy, from a sister studio, or something quite special to get one. You also have to sign a non-disclosure statement. Why? Let's just say things get really interesting in there!

STEELEING 6: GENERAL INFO

- I've always heard of Pixar being described as Wonka's Factory, so I figured "why not put together a short story about it?" So Steeleing 6 was born. The story is a fun, wacky, lighthearted, playful take on what people say about the real Pixar (And why they have those "non-disclosure statements.")
- Steeleing 6 is playing a little bit off of Kam's last name and the "Six" in Sixair.
- I'm still debating weither or not I should model any of the buildings or achietcure in this comic in 3D. 3D buildings are a hell of a lot faster for me to do than if I drew them. So I'm sorta leaning towards a 3D solution here.


Anyways, I'm still working on the comic pages and the artwork involved for this. Oh! And if there's anyone interested in helping out with the project or even quite possibly get a camio, please speak up! That's why this blog has comments enabled for! XD

Anyways, see you all later!