Tale #53 - The Tale Of Kam the Konquerer

Hi, all!

Anyways, I've just finished up my first round of my Civ game. I won this one based on a culture victory. It's as I say (in game), "If you can't kill them in general and you can't kill them with kindness, kill them with culture." It's an interesting strategy, but I happen to like this one. Anyways, I'm starting up a second round. But to those of you our there who are also Civ fans with time on their hands (of varying degree), feel free to give me a shout to play a multiplayer game with you. I'll probably show up as France and my name would probably be "Kam _______" .... fill in a French last name. Most likely "LaForge," "Lavoie," or "LaRoche" or something.

But anyways, moving on. Today, I've got some sketches and art to post to show you guys!

Since I finally got my cell phone working, here's a few images I took!



This was done when I had a little time to kill before class started. I was waiting for people to show up and well... I was a little bored, so I started doodling on the chalkboard near my desk. As to how I got some of those pastel-styled effects with the chalk, I just used my fingers. What I discovered was that each different finger size could acheieve different effects. For example, my little finger can do fine details while my thumb can tackle large stuff in a hurry. I've done stuff like this with pastels but I haven't really done chalks before and I haven't done something like this on a chalkboard before. So it was a major opportunity to experiment!

Anyways, here's some of the close up details of my adventure in chalks:






Now here's a picture I took in a nearby cemetary with my cell. I wanted to see if I can at least take some decent photography with it. In case you're wondering... yes, you CAN take some decent photography with it. However, it relies very heavily on how you frame up your shot. A badly framed shot will likely get you an ugly result. So anyways, here's my decent cell phone photograpy:



And there you have it! How to kick some ass with just your cell phone's camera!


But that's not all for today's art-a-thon, folks! There's one more!



Anyone remember "Mar" the monster from a few months back? Well.... I finally gave in and decided to colour him and make him look all spiffy. It was really hard to pick colours for him, but I think I'm pretty satified with the outcome.


In other random news, I also finally gave in to one more thing - storm chasing! I finally decided to go out and do it! It was one of the craziest things I've done but by far one of the most funnest things I've done. I didn't get any pictures of lightening (unfortunately). I was too slow. But I did gets some other interesting weather related phenomina that day. I will post the picture to that another post at another time. But I will say, it was a lot of fun and I think I'm going to do it again when the next big one hits.

Tale #52 - The Tale of The FRENCH II

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

Tale #34 - The Tale of Digital Sketches

Hi, all!

Anyways, I don't have much freelance work to do right now which resulted in a little down time. So what did I do with it? Well firstly, I revisited an old sketch from Tale #26 - The Tale of Sketch Dumps and decided to try colouring it. In the end, I got a coolish looking vectored result. I have no idea if I wanna shade it or not. That's still up in the air.

Here's the digitally coloured sketch:



And here's the original:



Now moving on to my next sketch, this one has a small story:



The idea for this one came from Bill Pressing's Blog where he was talking about someone commisioning him to draw his Rex Steele character (no relation to Kam Steele what so ever. I picked "Steele" as a last name before I even saw Rex Steele. It's just a weird couincidence.) But so far, no one's clamed the commision. So here enters the quirky idea in my head of drawing a Rex-chibi to "guilt" the commisionee. So far, the only one I sorta "guilted" with it was Bill himself. I'm guessing if it worked on him, it'll work on everyone else. Huzzah! Another goofy plan with artwork to match by me! XD Well.... in any event, it was certainly fun to draw.

Other than today's daily sketches, I really don't have much else going right now. It's quiet.... and 56k-styled slow. So if anyone has any requests they want me to draw, I'll definately get to them. The rules for requests are on the side of the blog-page along with all the other tiny details.

Anyways, see you all later!

Tale #32 - The Tale of Posters and Art Blocks

Hi, all!

Anyways, here's a look at what my tutor-ad looks like:



Okay. You really have to click on the image to see all the fine details of it. But what I'm doing is sorta a parody of a movie poster with vectorized flashyness. What I was going to do was one of those cheesey-vector movie explosions with a character running out of the center. I wanted to do action and something crazy because it'll grab attention more. It's just trying to get the explosion and the characters to look right which is driving me insane. So I'm playing around with this quite a fair bit.



This is also another work in progress I'm doing with a bike. In case you're wondering about what I use to draw on-screen, I DON'T use a tablit or a Cinque. Not that I can't use a tablit, it's just that a lot of this stuff has to be specially ordered in my city if they decide to carry them. Quite often times, they don't. As it is right now, only ONE store in my city just started carrying the tablit PC version of my HP Pavilion and it's seriously out of my price range (Yes.... I'm still quite poor. No thanks in part to that car accident in December. It was my first accident and it was super expensive!) So I have to make best with what I have. You see, if you let technology become your limitations, you can't get anywhere with that. All you'd be doing is saying "I wish I had that so I don't suck anymore." And that does no one any good at all. Especially if you're a super creative person otherwise. But what you can and should do is make the best with what you have and squeeze whatever you can out of it which is exactly what I do. Where I live, you kinda have to. So I'll use anything and try anything to turn out a great end product. So NEVER EVER let the technology limit you. Even cheap technology can turn out something awesome. But it all depends on how you use it and how much you are in control. The technology isn't the one controlling you or your art. You're the one controlling it.

So what do I actually use to draw on-screen? A super small, short-corded, laptop mouse. Yep. You heard that right! Just a cheap laptop mouse! Supprised that I don't use a tablit? Not that I can't draw with one either, but a laptop mouse is the best I can get right now. Over the years, I've taught myself to be able to draw digital artwork on well... everything and make it come out as though I were using a tablit. I can use anything from laptop mice to laptop touch pads to Wiimotes using GlovePIE to well.... everything. And that WIP bike you're seeing is actual proof that you can use a mouse and still get tablit-quality artwork out of it.

Tale #30 - The Tale of Art Blocks

Hi, all!

Anyways, I'm still stuck on that stupid art block! Arg! It's quite a fustrating thing sometimes. I'm working really hard to try to get rid of it. Plus side, my photography side seems to be quite active and non-blocked lately. Especially since I was lucky enough to snap a few awesome shots! I mean I managed to get pictures of summer sunset clouds, some dew covered flowers and plant life, and a few of this rainbow I saw. I don't have those shots with me right now so I can't upload them for you, but I do have a few items I was tinkering around with that I will show off:


These are just some vectors I was toying around with. It was more of a think-creativly vector-doodling excersize and not really a finished work. But I'm totally digging the vector trees logo.


This is another vector-based creation where I was working on a sample TCG template for a now defunked project. I guess you can tell this is an older project.


From that same project, logos had to be created for each card-type. Here's a few that I came up with. Again, I have that whole vector feel to it.


And this is just examining details of an earlier digital-creation I posted here on Tales Of A Media Geek. It shows a bit of how I think whenever I create something. I guess you can say that I think with a lot of detail and quite elaborately for not only artwork but writting as well. The thing is, I get such a blast out of doing this too. It's like putting two ideas together to get one bigger, newer, cooler idea. But yeah... that's a little window in to my mind when the creative process revs up.

Anyways, see you all later and hopefully I'll be out of this super bad art block!

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 #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!