Thoughts Awry Studio

Hey, its a secret...

2010-10-27T02:24:00.002-04:00

But I made a website for my work~

www.thoughtsawrystudio.com

(I might be back to use this for fun stuff someday...)

So Awesome...

2010-08-25T21:24:00.001-04:00

This is one sexy, sexy desktop...

(click on picture for 100% version)

Building a website - more updates to come...

Why you shouldn't utilize plaid and a different style of painting.

2010-07-16T02:05:00.000-04:00

Yeah yeah, its been a month since I posted anything - but to be fair I was doing stuff. But all of them are Limbo of the Lost related, and the Let's Play to be specific. Limbo of the lost already makes you feel like you're playing it out of context, and seeing comics of a bearded man performing acts of wanton violence isn't going to help any.

Anywho, the first image up is a sort of simple design thingie. I wanted to get some practice with just regular design stuff, the kind of things that go on bags/stuff or in the background of bigger pieces. Everything in here is great on its own, but in concert looks a little jacked up. I think if I tossed the blue plaid background and threw out the clover leaves, it might look okay. The tree is my favorite part.

In the second painting, I was trying to experiment a little bit in color, for when I paint I use a lot of tints and shades rather than cool and warm colors. It's not perfect, but it is a step in the right direction. The beads, the tassels and the smaller stones are my favorite parts. The nose and eyes, urgh. I'll give it another shot later, and try to expand the colors a bit more.

Up next: some Merlin, some logos, and perhaps an oil painting!

Almost like digital snacking

2010-06-19T07:58:00.001-04:00

I'm working on two different projects at the moment, a brochure for a friend of my mom and a new style of digital painting. I wanted to take a break and do something a little easy and quick, and I need to practice my computer linework. Plus, that 50 works is starting to look a little... large, at the moment.

The shadows on this need some work and it only mildly looks like Matt Smith from Doctor Who. But with a picture of Smith, I think I'm contractually obligated to do a picture of Tennant, but that will be later. And Doctor, bow ties definitely are not cool.

Chibi Gintoki - only slightly sucky...

2010-06-10T22:02:00.001-04:00

I know it defeats the purpose of me trying to get away from the anime style by drawing something that is nothing but anime style, but Gintoki is the shit and the drawing didn't take that much time. And that is the goal really, to produce works so fast that I don't hang around on any one and waste time.

The bonus is that I figured out how to do that hard line shape with the soft-filtery-look-thing. It shows, again, that all the tricks that look really cool and time consuming are actually easy as hell. Work #3 finished, onto #4!

Pottery Parade: Ceramics I

2010-06-03T02:20:00.000-04:00

This last year I took Ceramics I at KVCC. Since I had to keep all my projects in the lab until my critique on the final day, I haven't been able to post any pictures of the work I have done. I did show some pictures of the dragon sculpture in its raw clay form, but that doesn't count.

The first creation was a pinch form, a penguin teapot. I've obviously decided to not post it. Because.

The next project was a coil form. The outside form was a base of tenmoku, wiped down a little with a sponge, and I believe a layer of clear on top. The leaves should be celedon and another color. Tenmoku, in its raw glaze state, is a deep red color (due to the oxides). When I wiped away tenmoku glaze, the clay underneath was still dyed, and later created the copper tones. It looks really nice and I'm fond of the near turtle shell effect it has.

For the slab project, you take a giant hunk of clay and roll it through this huge set of rollers between two pieces of canvas. After letting the slabs air dry to leather hard consistency, you can cut out pieces and start fitting them together with wet clay and slip. This hexagon shaped box was a pain in the ass - I drew out a pattern before hand and modeled the carvings after traditional Jali screens (which are gorgeous, btw). I was pretty pissed when it came to the lid - when trying to figure out the measurement for the top lid and sides, I found I could actually use the algebra I learned. For art. The irony was almost palpable.

When taking the box to glaze, I fucked up. To keep the details of the lid and the sides, I was only going to do one coat of the celedon. However, I dipped the lid vertically, and the glaze pooled on the lid on the right. If given the chance to do so again, I would definitely use the airbrush. Also, in the kiln, the side warped inward. It still looks lovely - it was four whole days of work and carving, and its just a bummer to see it that way.

About a week after we started the slab, the class started utilizing the wheel. For all the skill and patience I have for carving and immaculate detail, I had a horrible time with the wheel. I went through nearly 13-15 different bowls, with only three making it to the kiln. And those weren't even the best bowls. On the left, that bowl is super wobbly (but makes a badass cereal bowl).

Others ended up as accidental plates, threw themselves off the wheel, or started cracking on the edges. Every day in the class, I went to Graphic Design with clay all over the place. The next bowl is pretty good and only a very slight dip. The blue slip looks a little odd, but it makes for a very nice dip dish. The thickness is spot on, though.

The last bowl is very small, but I have a fondness for it. I wish I would have used less glaze, since I lot of the detail I carved into the sides was covered up in the thick application. The spoudamane and celedon(?) looks very nice, and I'm not a huge fan of celedon.

Francis, my teacher, told us to make two small quickly rolled forms, dry them in the sun and get them to the greenware shelf as soon as possible. The pieces, to the left and below, use what's called the Raku process. When the piece is in bisqueware state, you use a special Raku glaze. There was a crackle white and a crackle green, but I used copper sand and copper luster. The one on the bottom is pure copper luster (and turned out a lovely silver and blue), while the one on the right has sand in the center, then a ring of copper luster, then a ring of sand again. It has a huge array of colors, but the application could have been thicker.

The next part is the best. You take the glazed pieces and put them in an outdoor kiln for about 15-20mins. After it hits about 1300 or so, you take the pieces red hot out of the kiln and throw it into a garbage can lined with sawdust or newspaper, then slam on a lid with wet towel as a seal. The newspaper goes up in flames as soon as the piece touches the bottom. You reek horribly when you leave, but it's fun as hell. I was going to take a Raku class this summer, but, KVCC canned the class. Assholes.

The last piece, my final project, turned out fucking awesome. I thought a glazed dragon might be difficult and look a touch awkward, so I used special underglazing paints. The teeth and eyes were glazed a white and red, respectively. The stonework looks really nice, but the dragon needed a little more work. The bummer is that I only had one work day to paint and clean up, so it was a bit of a rush job.

The final firing took it's toll on the poor thing though. There are severe cracks in the two pieces of the 'cliff', and the bottom one warped so far that the extended dragon leg holds the entire weight of the front of the statue. One chunk of a wing broke off, but not the most delicate one.

I'm extremely proud of this work, despite its many, many flaws (even if I accidentally hit it with my foot and broke off one of its ear-wing-things. Super glueeeee). There's a lot of warping, but then again the final fire is at 2300 degrees. I want to try doing more sculptural work, sticking to mostly additive sculpture. I bought some Sculpey Firm polymer clay to try subtractive sculpture, but that might be a disaster >.>;

Besides the Raku class that epically failed, I would like to take another ceramics class. Even if that means more time on that horrible wheel contraption. Otherwise, I just might to have to find an open workshop somewhere and get access to a kiln. Building my own is possible (lol), but certainly not realistic. Clay is a pretty cool medium to work with, and I only hope I have time to work with it again.

I love you dragon, don't stop being awesome ^.^

The [incredibly late] start of Art Adventure Time~

2010-06-02T02:59:00.001-04:00

During the start of the summer (about a month ago now), I realized that my portfolio was complete shit. I have a handful of good works, and most of those are through school assignments. If you're trying to freelance, school assignments aren't going to cut it - I need a more diverse selection of artwork as well as much stronger pieces. Plus, its been about 3-4ish years since I properly wrote, and that's a little ridiculous.

So, I made a bet with myself that if I could produce 50 digital works, 14 physical artworks, produce 1 functioning portfolio website and write around 230,000 words before August 22nd, that I could buy myself a second monitor for the laptop. Dual monitors is a luxury and a huge benefit when working on the computer. It's a month in and I have very little done (especially in the writing department), changing this slightly difficult challenge into a ludicrous bet. All the more fun, I suppose.

I have a ton of weird projects in mind to fulfill the quotas: I already made a new purse, and as soon as I paint something on my new wallet, I can count another piece down. I have about three oil paintings to do, some Sculpey Firm polymer clay of which I'll carve something, and a personalized Tarot card set. I look forward to printing the cards without a true press to work with. Something about a piece of board and my weight.

As for digital stuff, I'm going to putt around with different styles and programs (Photoshop, Illustrator, Corel Painter) and produce smaller works for June and July, while in August I want to start a comic series that I can work on throughout the year.

As for writing, well... the story is pretty awful so far, with so few words and my writing skills rustier than a 20 year old sunken reef ship. Even that metaphor was a little stretched. Nothing might come of it, but the point is to write again.

Even better, throughout all of this, I still want to practice on the piano, start re-studying Japanese (since I've forgotten so much), loose some goddamn weight, and still go to work 25 hours a week. Free time is in there somewhere...

And with this, I am free!

2010-04-25T11:50:00.001-04:00

Well, almost free - but as far as I'm concerned, just turning in projects and an informal presentation is not considered real work.

For digital painting, were were asked to take one of our favorite/best digital paintings and fix it up for another critique. If you look down, you can see the original Venice picture. This one I cleaned the edges up, colorized bits and pieces of it, then layered two sheets of textured/colored paper. The final effect is beyond awesome, a case of pure luck/intuition unfortunately.

It will be entered in the Center for New Media end-of-the-year Art Hop.

(I might get a full poster made too ^.^ - it is 11x16)

Edit 5/4/10: The piece was accepted into the May 7th Art Hop. I'll be able to go to this show and see it lose personally, lol.

Final Project of the Damned

2010-04-25T01:22:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned in the last post, this is the final project for both Digital Painting and Graphic Design in a 800ish point death-a-thon. It utilizes just about every program I have: Corel Painter, InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. And my patience.

The illustrations were created in Painter using the oil pastels, then a filter placed on top to give it the grainy effect. The cover was colored in Photoshop. The glowy logo (it says "Gestalt" btw) was created in Illustrator. The inside spread is a series of complicated layers and modifying layer attributes in Photoshop. For the blood, I used the same process designated for cleaning up line drawings. It worked surprisingly well, and I didn't have to clean up around the spatters and hope they turned out. Which shaves off a ton of time.

The biggest downside to the spread is that the text does not extend all the way to the bottom of the page to be flush with the rest of the text.

The short story, "Empty Twilight", is something I wrote last summer for my Creative Writing class. It is the story of three boys who wander into an abandoned complex to find a forbidden object, freeing themselves of bullying from the older kids.

I'm not sure if the story is going to be legible for everyone, since the quality was reduced for web. The text is super small on a large resolution screen. If anyone is interested, I can always post a .pdf version or maybe a higher res image.

Non-Existent Events - BE THERE

2010-04-25T01:01:00.000-04:00

Hello again friends, and salutations from a brain that is completely fried. I just finished up the last of my work for Digital Painting and Graphic Design this semester in a giant all-in-one project (posted later).

I wanted to post an assignment we did a week or so ago, an event poster. Everything on the poster is (obviously) hand lettered and hand drawn. Except for those stupid stars. I really liked doing the hand lettering, since it gives a unique effect and it hard to replicate with a font. I'm thinking about creating more 'fake' posters over the summer, maybe even making it a specialty. Next time I will utilize the ruler a bit more - it looked neater on paper, but when it was blown up on the computer it looked horrible.

Threadless Submission - McYogsothoth

2010-04-13T20:21:00.001-04:00

I submitted my first t-shirt design to threadless (www.threadless.com) which has a badass arrangement of t-shirts. I don't expect poor Cthulhu to make it to print, but it's the experience that counts... Okay, so I'm a bit more upset that it will be pummeled into the ground - but getting a tshirt printed one day is a goal to aspire to!

Go see it here: http://www.threadless.com/submission/267305/McYogsothoth

EDIT: The scoring for McYogsothoth ended a few days ago, and it scored a 2.33/5. That doesn't seem like a super high score, but its pretty good for Threadless (remember, people can score it a 1 on a whim or slight dislike). I would like to enter a few more just for laughs this summer.

Some random stuff...

2010-04-08T20:23:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to put up some other assignments I liked from my digital painting class. The black and white painting was done in Corel Painter using the acrylic brush. It's my take on the Venetian carnival masks. If you've never seen the pictures, go google it right now. I'd like to do a color oil of them one day.

The second poster is from my Shakespeare poster assignment about my favorite play "Much Ado About Nothing". I modeled the characters after the movie (the one with Dr. Wilson ^.^). In the play, Hero and Dr. Wilson's relationship is all puppies and rainbows, and its generally annoying as hell. But Beatrice and Benedick are hilarious and much more realistic. Go see it if you have the chance! The picture was traced in Adobe Illustrator, and then textures applied in
Photoshop.

My freakin' "tour de force"

2010-04-03T01:23:00.000-04:00

This last week was a sort of 'finals' week for my ceramic class. Monday (the 5th) is our last day for for wet clay, with the next month spent on glazing and the Raku ceremony. We were allowed to do just about anything we wanted, whether it be thrown, slab, coil or sculpted. I really wanted to do a series of masks, but the piece had to support itself. I couldn't do the greek-Medusa thing, since the sculpture would really need some serious armatures, and nothing but pure clay is allowed in the kiln

And then I knew.

It was time to pay my tithe to the Art Gods - for every art student regardless of focus and age, will make at least one piece featuring a dragon. It is the inevitable law of the universe.

The base was constructed of two separate pieces coiled on a flat base. when the pieces were leather-hard, I cut the bottom piece out so I could fit in the slanted 'rock'. I cut it a bit too far, leaving that jankety opening. For support, two 'pillars' were fitted inside the lower piece to support the top. The end look resembles the inside of a cave.

The body was sculpted out of solid clay and later hollowed. I placed the body on top of the rock and patched the numerous amount of cracks. Two different heads were sculpted (the first too big). The legs are nearly solid clay, which means it will twelve years before this is perfectly dry.

Everything turned out how I wanted - except for the wings. I wasn't allowed to use wire to support and sculpt the wings. I tried to support them using a cardboard base, but they would be too thin and kept cracking. The end result is a weird set of abstract wings. It works, but they're too small for the body.

Regardless, the end result is a badass dragon. Now one more picture for posterity - since it is going to blow up in the kiln.

I think I just asphyxiated on paint fumes...

2010-03-31T02:29:00.000-04:00

After over a month working on this painting, its finally at that stage where I can't care any longer. Sure, there are always more things to do - the gray suit guy's grin isn't shit-eating enough, and the girl could always a boob reduction and smaller eyes. Oh, and her glove is all fuxed up. Anatomy, anatomy, anatomy. And the newspaper looks odd as hell, and should be tinted a -- yeah, this can go on for quite some time.

The best part is the painting tells a wonderful story - in class I enjoyed the stories people created for these three. I think the guy in green was supposed to be a Jewish gangsta robot from the future. It's destined to be a hopeful entry for KVCC's Art Show next week. I hope to god the oil can dry in time - it needs a week, and it has two days.

I forgot my witty title...

Illustration Friday - Subterranean

2010-03-18T22:40:00.000-04:00

A group of gnome-things and their adventures in the underdark. The unofficial one, with less Drow.