Hi, all!
Anyways, I'm almost done my first round of my French campaign Civ game. So far, I'm beating everyone out on culture power. It may be my key to winning here. XD But anyways, I'm doing an early art post and putting up some digital work to show you guys:
No text in this one. I think you got the point with the last sketchier one. XD
Hi, all!
Anyways, I STILL can't get my art off my phone. So I've got a nice Civilization (AKA Monty Python Quote) anecdote for whenever I play as France:
Yes.... I'm a major Civ fan and love the game to death. My family gave me the lastest version of it in this nice little box set for my birthday and well... been playing it on my breaks since. If there's anyone out there interested in playing multiplayer, my name will most likely be Kam, Kam_Steele or Kamui.EXE and I'll be playing as King Louie because you know... it's fun to be French. XD
Hi, all!
Anyways, I'm a year older now... but not nessisarily a year wiser. Hmm.... Or maybe I am a little wiser because of the whole "you learn something new everyday" thing. So yeah... I'm now 22yrs instead of 21years. Woohoo!
So now comes another question: When will I be posting more art? Well.... I actually I did have something, but I'm uploading it tommorrow because it's sitting on my cell phone and for some reason, it's not comming OFF my phone. So this is going to take a little debugging here. So what do I have? Well... some artistic chalk board "fun" is one of them. (AKA: Got to class early, waited for people to show up, got bored, started doodling cool doodles...) And my other is my second graveyard trip in search of inspiration and well... I'm going to show off a little cell-phone photography (Trust me, it's actually pretty good for cell photography.) But that's comming up on Friday.
So that's it for my little update here. Anyways, see you all later!
Hi, all!
Anyways, here's the long awaited "Power Blogfolio Tips." I'm going to divide this up in to two parts to make things easier. So here's part 1!
So what's a "Blogfolio?"
What a blogfolio is it's a combination between a blog and a portfolio. It's what I call a close cousin to an art-blog where you post your art. The difference? A blogfolio is used to PROMOTE your art to people in the industry instead of posting art just for feedback or because you felt like it.
Okay.... now why use one?
Well! Firstly, blogs have a lot of power to them. You can either get hired or fired based on what you post on one. Another thing that blogfolios have going for it is that you can always update it. Unlike portfolios of the past, you can always update a blogfolio without resubmitting it which makes it very dynamic. But there's also one more thing that comes with it too that no other type of portfolio has - interactivity! You can interact with the blogfolio and its' owner and get feedback quickly.
Alright! Now I totally get it. But why the heck are you posting this?
The fine art of Blogfolio'ing is the newest and soon-to-be trendy'est thing popping out of the blog-o-sphere right now. But because of how new this trend is, there really isn't a definate set of rules, tips or ettiquet for them right now. So what I'm going to try to do is post a set of tips and try to define some form of blogfolio ettiquet based on observation, pre-exsisting blog rules, and good judgement. So let's get started, shall we?
Gear You Need
Here's what you need to start your blogfolio:
- A host (Livejournal, Blogger... ect)
- A Computer with Internet (You can't blogfolio without it)
- Some art you've scanned in or digitized somehow to post
- A resume or a resume-like blurb about your skills
- Dedication (A blogfolio isn't much unless you're willing to dedicate some time to this.)
General Ettiquet
Firstly, let's start off with the general rules/ettiquet for general blogging. Those will serve as a foundation for blogfolio. So here's a look at them:
Rule #1: Take responsibility for what you say - Well... you have to! Why? Because the Internet has a memory. If you put it in writing, it WILL remember. It doesn't matter if you delete it. You can still bring it back up in all its' glory/gory. So watch what you say.
Rule #2: Make room for comments - Part of the art of blogging is the chance for feedback. So leave room for it.
Rule #3: Let people know about what your tolrance level of abuse is - "Abuse" can mean different things to different people and cultures. Remember, it's not just YOUR country that's online. It's the entire world! So one thing that might be considered abusive or threatening to you may not be for someone else in another culture. For example - We, here in Canada, think of the thumbs up sign as a good thing. But in Austrailia, it pretty much means "up your's." So please keep that in mind and post all that stuff ahead of time. As for me, what I consider abuse is trolling, spam, harassment (Of all verbal types), and hate comments. However, I do have a sense of humor, so I use my own best judgement here.
Rule #4: Ignore trolls - They're just looking for a fight. The worst kinds of trolls look to start a fight, claim it as abuse, report it to an administrator to get you banned. I've seen them take it this far and I've seen their handywork = not pretty. So just ignore them. And if they post a comment you don't like, you can just simply delete it.
Rule #5: If someone is misbehaving on your blog and it's not trolling, tell them! - Often times, if you tell them what they're doing is wrong, they'll stop. But when you tell them, be sure to be calm, assertive yet firm. There's no need to get nasty. Just handle this civily.
Rule #6: Don't say anything online that you wouldn't say to anyone's face - I think this one pretty much explains itself. A blog or anything online aren't exactly privet things, so don't do that.
Blogfolio Ettiquet
While there isn't a general set of rules available for blogfolios, here's a few that I've noticed that generally work and pretty much are a good idea. However, please keep in mind the general blogging rules because they may help you out in a jam.
Rule #1: Avoid poltics and "heavy" subjects - The point of your blog isn't to disguss what stupid thing certain world leaders are doing next. Why? Because different people think different things and well... this can lead to arguments that can go quickly out of hand in to an all out flame war. Clearly NOT professional. So avoid this like the plague. I remember first starting TOAMG and I asked for a little bit of feed back and the one popular answer was to make it about politics. Their theory - negative attention is still attention. I told them upfront that my goal was NOT to piss anyone off and politics/heavy subjects are a great way of doing that. So, guys, negative attention is definately NOT good attention and well.... won't do you any favours. So NO POLITICS/HEAVY SUBJECTS!
Rule #2: Give, Give, GIVE - People like freebies and like free handouts, so why not create a few. Like create some comic book templates, tutorials or something people can use. If you can give them something they can use, they'll not only come back, but odds are, they'll tell other people about your freebies. I recall an episode of The Simpsons once where Homer created the Mr. X website. Before that, all he had was a page of animated gifs. It was then Lisa said that a webpage had to give something back. In reality, your blogfolio should be able to do the same. While it's primary purpose is to post your stuff and get yourself out there to potential employers, you should also find ways of giving back to your visitors.
Rule #3: Keep a resume or some sort of resume-esque blurb about yourself - We need to know what you can do. Most blog hosting services allow you to put some form of bio/blurb about yourself under your profile. So why not put it to use? Put all your skills and experiance you can in to this section of profile. BUT if your resume and experiances are too long to put in there you can either: A.) Put the most important stuff in there and supply the rest on request. B.) Host your actual resume on another website and link it up to your blogfolio.
Rule #4: Put your contact info where everyone can see it wherever they go - It's no good if no one can contact you, right? Just put your email or any other relavant contact info on your mainpage where it can be seen. On TOAMG, I keep my contact stuff on the side of my page so no matter where you go, you can always see it and find it.
Rule #5: Be professional but also be flexible - Let's face it, people like professional. But you have to be flexible too. You can't be overly serious all the time. So at least allow for a sense of creativity and fun in to your blogfolio. Here, at TOAMG, I like to keep a bit of a playful atmposhere so you'll occasionally see a cartoon pop up. But I also try to maintain a bit of professionalism while I'm doing this. Also when you post your work, be prepared to give an artistic explanation of the hows and whys of it. It lets people see in to your head.
Rule #6: NEVER talk about ANYONE in a negative light - That's a huge NO! This is one of those things that can ruin things for you. So no matter how angry or upset you are with someone, DON'T post it in your blogfolio! This can be a career killer! So avoid it at all costs.
Rule #7: It's okay to talk a little bit about daily life, but be sure to post some portfolio stuff - Yeah... we ALL have lives and interesting things that happen to us. But this isn't the focus of your blogfolio! The focus should be your portfolio stuff. So you can talk about life stuff (in a light context more often than not PLEASE!) but make sure you post a lot of your portfolio stuff too. Here, at TOAMG, I often make sure I have SOME art or SOMETHING attention-worthy going up as portfolio pieces. Throughout this summer (2007), I made sure a lot of art went up. So I believe that this is a good practise.
Rule #8: Post your BEST work only - DON'T post anything subpart or anything that isn't an accurate demonstration of your skills. This will most likely get potential employers to ignore you.
Rule #9: Keep graphic sizes small (thumbnails) and make your page 56k friendly - About 49% of the world's Internet using population in the year 2005 were still on 56k. Odds are, people are still using it now in 2007. So please keep them in mind and make your page a quick loader as well as easy to use. If you can, use thumbnails. Also bear in mind that some people will use their mobiles to access your page. So design-wise, keep them in mind too.
Rule #10: Allow for constructive critisism - It's a handy tool. If someone sees a way for you to improve, I seriously suggest listening to them. Constructive critism isn't bad critism. It's a good thing.
Rule #11: Post often - People like it when things update often and will come back. So it's a good idea to post a lot. Oh! And if you've got anything techincal glitches or anything relating to quirky issues surrouning your blogfolio (EI: Not being able to make an update in a week or something) - POST ABOUT IT! You have to let people briefly know what's up. It's a really good courtasy thing to have.
Rule #12: Be nice to others in the industry both online and offline - Do NOT become all fangirly/fanboyly over them and especially DON'T do it in their own blogs. Deep down at the end of the day, they're people and artists too... just like you. Treat them with respect like you would another human being, but don't go crazy about it. That fangirling/fanboying thing can get old fast and well... it can really bother a person. So I don't recomend doing that.
Rule #13: Have fun - Yeah... it sounds like a corny rule, but it's one of those things people forget to do and even more so with all these rules that I've posted. But listen, a blogfolio can be a fun, exciting and rewarding experiance. You should enjoy the adventure and enjoy keeping one running. A blogfolio or even a blog in general isn't worth while if you're not enjoying it or it starts becoming a chore. So please, have fun with your blogfolio.
Anyways, that ends Part 1 for "Blogfolio Powertips." As I said, I would have had something for Friday but because I wanted to do a post on "Blogfolios," the artwork is going to be delayed a week. But I hope these Blogfolio tips are helping you out in setting one of these up. (And besides, there doesn't seem to be any blogfolio tips on the web at all last time I Googled them. Even Wiki has nothing! So this would be the first set of Blogfolio tips I've ever seen posted.)
Well! See you all later!
Hi, all!
Anyways, just as a little tidbit here: I think I'll be making the sketch-of-the-day as more like sketch-of-the-WEEK because of the amount of work that got dumped on me which is making it a challenge to find time to sketch and to scan it in to show you guys. So I'm sorry about that! But I'll try to make up for it on Fridays... I PROMISE!
Anyways, now a look at other things. Well... for starters, I finally finished off jPod. You know you're a major geek if you understood 95% of the geekisms in there and unfortunately, I do. XD Now I want to pick up Mircoserfs next. XD But anyways, I have to say that I did enjoy it. So yeah.... that's what I was reading when I wasn't cracking open the textbooks.
The other thing that happened to me in that time was I finally met my Sketching teacher for Sketch Class. Well... actually, the class's name is "Contemporary Aboriginal Art." But that's a major misnomer. You see, it's actually a traditional art class that teaches traditional art (EI: sketching nudes, working on charcoal portrates... ect). So why is it called ABORIGINAL art? Well... that's where all the wackyness kicks in. You see.... it's an Aboriginal TEACHER teaching the art. So he would joke and call the class "Contemporary Aboriginal Art." But since then, the joke kinda stuck and it's now become the actual name of the course.
But anyways, on to the main story. The teacher is a really smart guy. He's someone who thinks story and art should go hand-in-hand but he also has a broad view of what art is. Some of the stuff we got talking about was extremely interesting from the role of digital art to the Great Masters to well... anything art and story related under the sun. But then he asked me to bring one of my filled sketchbooks in to next class. That night, however, I had thought ahead of time and brought some of my sketchbooks along because I thought that we needed them to sketch in. So I showed that to him. He had a good look through it before I got questioned like crazy. I really wasn't expecting that! Like he asked me "How did you come up with your art style?" "How did you come up with your ideas?" "Where do you get your inspiration?" and so forth. He really liked what he saw in there (And just so you know, what he saw in the sketchbooks was what I posted here on TOAMG. So you've got that for referance.) And he just wanted to find out all about how I work on my stuff and everything. He was very happy with what he saw that class. So I'm going to take a guess here that I'm definately on the right track.
Anyways, I've got to get to class! I'll see you all later!
Hi, all!
Anyways, I've been a little busy. So the proper titles should have been "The Tale of Orientation WEEK" since I really didn't get back to this until about a week later.
So what happened?
Well.... on Orientation DAY, as our last pit stop, we took a tour of a Bombardier manufacturing plant to learn about the fine business art of Kaisan. However, since most thought Orientation day would only take up until half the day, most people couldn't stick around for the tour. So that left just four students including myself. The tour went over quite well except when we got to the fiberglassing area. Now to those of you who don't know, I have an extremely sensative sense of smell. (I also have good eyes and a great sense of touch, but that's a whole other story best saved for another time.) One of the things about having a great sense of smell is that I can pick up on stuff that most people in my family misses. I can also somewhat taste the smell in the back of my throat too. So on one hand, this can be an awesome thing. But on the other, I can actually have this work against me too. An example would be skunk. It's bad enough that I can smell it, but I can "taste" that smell too and it was god-aweful! The same goes for cigarette smoke. Can't be around smokers either. So bad smells tend to stick longer in the back of my throat and well that completely screws up my sense of taste for a moment or two and I pretty much am left coughing and hacking out my lungs if it's super bad. So as you can imagine with the fiberglass area, it was pure olfactory hell for me. I tried sticking it out as long as I could but I think everyone noticed that I wasn't handling the fiberglass smell too well. Eventually the tour came to an end and I learned much about the plant and the students who came with me.
Now move on to the other days of Orientation Week....
I had to pick up my student card and for some weird reason, this year was student card hell due to the huge line ups. So in waiting, I saw a checkers mini-tournament going on. I was bored so I decided to check it out. For those of you unaware, I hadn't played checkers in years. But when I did, I was pretty good at it. Since it had been a while, I opted to go and play in the mini-tournament. The guy I ended up playing against was the head of Student Sports & Rec. How about we just call him "Rec-Guy" for now. Anyways, Rec-Guy thought he was all that when he came to play against me. I wasn't sure if I had my ubber checker-playing skills left and thought I would be quite rusty. But as I started playing, it became quickly apparent that I can still kick someone's ass at this game. To make matter worse for Rec-Guy, we had an announcer with a megaphone who started teasing him when he lost. In the end, I managed to win a Hot Wheels taxi (which is sitting on my computer desk. You know how cool it is to keep toys and things on your computer desk to flaunt your geekyness! XD ) and a yo-yo. We sorta had a toys-theme going on.
So as it stand, over the course of Orinetation week, here's what I won:
- Bath soap (For being the only one in Marketing to be born in Septemeber. Am I the odd ball here?)
- A Student Union water bottle and pen set
- A stress ball that looks like a globe
- A yo-yo
- A Hot Wheels car
.... maybe I'm just too lucky or maybe I'm just at the right place at the right time.
So then comes classes. Now I was sure that Marketing and Media were pretty much cousines of each other. So I figured they would understand the same sorts of things. But what I quickly figured out was that none of them were Media-Geeks like me. They just didn't seem to understand the humor and I didn't understand why. I also didn't understand why when I brought up some of my computer experiances (it was unavoidable! One of my classes had us bring it up!), I get this weird stare from everyone accompanied with the shuffling away of the chairs on the linolium floor. So here I am sitting there confused. If Marketing and Media were cousines, why was I being looked at funny? This morning in that mental wake-up fog, it dawned on me - Marketers don't NEED to see under the hood and use the computer. They get the Media-geeks to do that for them. So this means that pretty much I'm the only one totally knowning the inner workings of the media end of things. So when I speak geek, they don't understand it. But they do understand numbers, facts and statistics where as I deal with that very little. I've got a rough understanding of how that works, but I need the diploma to prove what I know PLUS add on any extra skills. So now I get why Marketers freak about geek speak. But that also means that I've got to start holding back now. I feel a little trapped by this, but I know that I will get through this. I just have to watch my step now and just be aware of when I start to speak geek. This is going to be one unusual life-experiment.
Anyways, class is about to start and I've gotta get going. I will get some sketches up this week, I promise!
Hi, all!
Back with another life update (Since things were so crazy, I really didn't get a moment's peace to sketch.... not that that's a hugely bad thing....) But I did have quite an adventure when it came to my Business Marketing Orientation day yesterday.
It felt a little strange going back to school, but hey! Two diplomas are way better than one, right? So I wasn't quite sure what to expect back on my first day. Well... the day was full of supprises! The first being that my order for my Adobe CS3 package FINALLY came in. So I had that to drool over before heading to the event. WOOT! But then the ball got rolling after that. I encountered some of my old professors and we stopped to chat about how our summers went. As it turns out, we both had equally busy summers. I also told him a bit about my blogfolio, TOAMG (Here I go, inventing words again! New word = "blogfolio" XD Actually... I didn't invent it. Someone else did, but it's a new recent thing using blogs as portfolios. Cool, eh? )
So after quick chit-chat, I managed to get to the correct room. Now here I am expecting to walk in there, not know anyone, and introduce myself like a dorky idiot (Okay... maybe I'm not a dorky idiot unless I'm without my morning coffee. But then again, who doesn't sound at least a little goofy in the mornings without coffee or some other means of a turbo-hyper-galactic-boost-and-mind-defogger substance?) But strangely enough, that wasn't the case. I actually DID know a few people. One of them I recognized as a drop out from the first year of my Media Arts major (The major I was last in and graduated from. It's a 3-year long major). Smart guy, but was more in to code than the art and animation. The other person I knew came all the way from my high school days. She graduated a year ahead of me and actually STILL remembered and recognized me. (The nasty snag: I didn't remember her very well. It's a goofy thing. You know how you can meet someone and then it could be a few years later before you see them again and when they see you, they remember you and you don't remember them thus causing a moment or two of "memory-guilt?" Similar feeling. Actually, I think there was a Pepsi commercial here in Canada based on this.) So at least I could take comfort in the fact that I at least knew a few people.
Then came on the presentations the professors had along with a few contests to test to see how much you were listening. My mind, being how it is the keeper and retainer of randomized bits of important information (Sometimes, I could be doing something else at the same time and I could still remember what was said.) So I was able to handle some of the quiz questions and won a bunch of stuff. Usually, someone else cuts in front of me and shouts out the answer before I even get the chance. This time, I was quite lucky. Oddly enough, I don't know why.
But out of all the presentations, one really caught me off guard. This one dealt with my city and did one very important thing for me - It gave me hope. For those of you completely unaware of what my city is like, let me tell you that my city is a dying city right now. There are several factors contributing for this. The first is that the city counsil still wants to hang on to the old ways of doing things eventhough it doesn't work anymore in modern times. The second is that around my city are smaller Native communities/tribes. Now what would happen is that in these communities, if you did something extremely horrible or if you're a chronic (Fill-in-the-blank), they would exile you. So what do they do when they exile someone from the tribe? They give them a one way bus ticket to my city to be dumped off there! They won't outwardly admit this, but you don't have to go very far to figure this out. So you can probably tell what this means. Also, the city's core has deteriorated badly, industry and business are moving out.... sounds like a recipe for disaster. As you know from earlier posts to TOAMG, there aren't storytellers and other media geeks like me sticking around either. So from where I stand, it seems like my city is going down like the Titanic. But then I listened to this presentation yesterday that got me thinking otherwise. The presentation said they've got someone new in charge of handling some money and the city planning. What's he going to do with it? He wants to build a media/IT district overlooking our major lake. Part of this, he let one thing to be hinted at that's going to be reality - we're getting a major animation studio here. My jaw dropped at this. Was I hearing things? Is this really going to happen?
...!
...yes.
It's real. They're starting the studio's construction this month. They are really here. It's really real. I can now actually see that there's a little bit of light and hope here. Maybe I can actually afford to stay for a little while.
There's more to this story of what happened on Orientation Day, so I'm going to leave you all here on a cliffhanger. Why? Because I'm going to have to dash off to class soon. So I'm going to leave those thoughts with you guys for a while.
Anyways, see you all later!
