Rock-n-Roll Journey to Mars

Day 8: A photo that makes me angry or sad

I... honestly can't think of a photo that makes me said or angry. :/ I don't keep around photos that make me upset, and I'm not about to go looking for one that makes me upset. So. Yeah.

I feel like I should say something here so... it seems that all the new music I've been getting into is all through things webcomic makers suggest. Like, I love The Protomen, which I first heard about over at Johnny Wander, and because of Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name I'm giving Ludo a chance. I don't know if this says anything about me or what. *shrug*

Day 6: My biggest pet peeve
There’s a lot of things that annoy me, but I think the one thing that I can honestly call my biggest pet peeve is when people (both men and women) state that they would neeever send their child to daycare, one parent HAS to be a stay-at-home parent, and that if you ‘let another person raise your child’, they’ll turn out terrible.

Now, I don’t get angry at people who really just want to be stay-at-home parents because they’d rather be with their child then work. And I do think that if a parent doesn’t spend much time with their child after they get home from work/whatever, then it’s neglectful. Still, both my parents work, and have always worked. My mother took maternity leave for a few years after my sister was born, and one year for me. Both of us went to daycare during our primary education years, and were latchkey kids from middle school on. And yet, we turned out fine. My sister is steadily employed and has great interpersonal relationships with people; I’ve been on honor rolls all throughout high school, am now on the Dean’s list, and while I don’t have many friends, those I do, I cherish for life. Our parents took great care of us – we didn’t see them during the day on weekdays, but they always spent time with us in the evenings, and we did family activities on the weekends. They never brought their work home with them, because they believed their life, their family, was more important.

Basically, when people try and tell me that kids that go to daycare turn out terrible, I take it as a personal insult against my family and me. And that’s why it’s my biggest pet peeve – because it attacks my entire family.

Day 4: My favorite book

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

I didn’t really have to think about this. I’ve read this book so many times that my hardcover copy fell apart. I love this book. Actually, I love most of Moore’s books (except for Fool, which I look upon as his self-insert Shakespeare fic), but this one is my favorite. It uses a lot of dark humor and sex jokes, like all of his work, but it sets itself apart from the rest with its characters and their interactions. Charlie Asher, the main character, is a beta male, like most of the Moore’s mains, but he’s also a single father, trying to cope with raising his daughter after his wife’s death, and also collecting the souls of the recently deceased and letting them move on. He approaches this with cynicism and witty jokes, but he doesn’t come off as a hero – in fact, he seems kind of Woody Allen-ish. All the characters are memorable and funny, and the writing makes me laugh ‘till I cry. I just adore this book.

I've told people IRL that this is my favorite book, and they usually seem pretty surprised. A lot of my friends assume that my favorite writer would be Ray Bradbury or Oscar Wilde, because I guess I come off as a bit of a book snob. And while I do like those authors, love their writing styles, and often try to emulate it, they don't really have the same spot in my heart as Moore does. Honestly, the book that got me to like reading was Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants, and I think of Moore as a bit more adult version of Pilkey.

Also, I started wearing suits because of Charlie Asher.

Day 2: My favorite movie
The Fall (2006) Directed by Tarsem

The Fall is a really recent film, and I admit I’ve only seen it twice, but there’s no denying that it’s my favorite movie. The first time I saw it, I fell it love with it, becoming as hopelessly devoted as Vincent Van Gogh to his prostitute lover that he sent his ear to. Except The Fall isn’t a prostitute, it’s a beautiful, shy lady who often gets overlooked because she’s modest and doesn’t but herself out there very much. And even though I love the film, I won’t cut my ear off for it, and I really don’t know where I’m going with this metaphor, so I’ll get back to the point.

The first thing I noticed when I saw The Fall was it’s stunning visuals. It had amazing sweeping landscapes filmed in multiple countries, and very, very little of it is CGI. The film is so beautiful, so lush and colorful, in a world were filmmakers are trying more and more to make everything grey and brown unless they’re Terry Gilliam. (And even his latest film was pretty gray.) Each shot is careful and gorgeous, and just watching the trailer makes me feel this little flutter in the artsy part of my heart.

Of course, I said recently that I won’t watch a film just because it’s pretty, and The Fall is no exception. The story is wonderful – a bit simple, but I love it anyways. It’s like Baron Von Munchausen or Princess Bride, but darker and edgier. And by that I don’t mean lots of guns and gore (there are a few fight scenes, but they’re actually pretty tame), I mean that the story is dark. Like BvM or PB, The Fall is a framed-narrative of a man telling a story to a child. But he isn’t trying to teach her the power of story, like the Grandfather or the Baron… instead, he’s manipulating her. The framed story is pretty interesting, too – he describes what he knows, and she imagines what she knows, and it makes for this awesome mish-mash of cultures.

I’ve gone on long enough, so I’ll go ahead and wrap this up. The Fall is a great film, balancing gorgeous visuals and a well-written story. It needs more love, seriously, so go check it out. It’s got Lee Pace being a badass. And Charles Darwin. With a monkey.

So hey, funkicarus did a post on the art supplies they use, and turned it into a little meme. So I'm going to ramble about what kind of art stuff I prefer to use.

Paper

I will really use just about any paper. I'm really not picky. Most of my drawings are done on normal white printer paper, mainly because it's pretty cheap, I have easy access to it, and since it's 8.5x11 in., I can put a stack in my messenger bag easily and it won't weigh my bag down. It's also small enough that it can fit on a standard size scanner. However, it's not very good to use if you're working with watercolor, because the colors bleed and the paper warps. I still haven't found something that I like for watercolor - I've tried card stock and custom-made heavier papers, and while the paint will look good, inking tends to come out really bad.

I've used sketchbooks before, but tend to not be too comfortable with them. I prefer the spiral-bound books, but will look for the top-bound type instead of side-bound, because then I can turn the page sideways easier. My main problem with sketchbooks is that they don't always fit on my scanner, and when they do, that huge stack of paper plus the binding makes it so the top of the scanner can't lay flat, and it allows outside light in, and that can mess up your scanning. I hate book-style bound sketchbooks because if the drawing is near the side of the page, you'll get a shadow because you can't move the page before it out of the way.

For canvas for my acrylic, I've been using pre-stretched and treated canvas - I'm not sure about all art stores, but the one I went to in CO sold these in various sizes, which were really nice because I didn't have to do any work. I've never stretched my own canvas and am kind of worried that if I did, I'd mess it up.

Pencils and Pens

For pencils, I use .07 mechanical pencils. Brand doesn't really matter, but I do tend to like ones that come with a soft grip, and nice erasers. I tend not to use the erasers on mechanical pencils too much, but use them every once in a while. However, I usually tend to use click erasers - y'know, the ones that are a stick, and that everyone always jokes reminds them of a penis - for working with penciling, because they're smallish, and I have plenty of control over them. I don't like using larger erasers for pencil work, because I almost always wind up erasing more then I wanted to. However, I do use larger erasers for erasing linework after inking - for that, I favor a latex-free Staedler eraser - it's very smooth and doesn't take much work to erase lines, even heavy ones, so there's less of a chance of rubbing through or ripping your page (I'm not sure if this is a problem for everyone, but it is for me).

As for pens, I mainly use Microns. I tend to use a range of sizes, all rather equally. I like changing up the sizes depending on what I'm working on - 005 and 01 are used for hair, facial features, and other small details; 02 and 03 are used for a lot of in-between lines, usually clothing and bodies; and 05 and 08 are used for borders, backgrounds, anything that needs a really large, thick line. Microns are nice to use - they're cheap, they tend to last a while, and they lay down ink pretty smoothly. However, my favorite pens to use are Staedler technical pens, sizes 0.25, 0.35, 0.5, and 0.7. These pens are incredibly nice. The ink is incredibly smooth, they handle nice, and they last FOREVER. However, they can be kind of pricey, so I tend to save them for when large projects.

I'll also use Micron Brush pen and a Micron graphic pen if I want to do brush-like work. These aren't really brush-pens, as they don't have actual bristles, but they work nice enough for what I want them to do. I don't like actual brush-pens or brushes for inking, as I tend to have shaky hands, so it usually doesn't come out right. Also, in the past I've tried using nib pens and dipping ink, but I'm terrible with them and tend to get ink all over the place, so I've stopped using them.

Colored Pencils

I use Prismacolor Premier Pencils for most of my art. I've also tried using Eagle pencils, but other then that, I haven't really experimented too much. Prismas are good for what I need them to do, and I'm constantly changing around how I use them - early on, I was all about the blending, now I'm playing around with hatching. Prismas are nice, and can put down a really smooth color is you work with them right. I've been using them literally since grade-school, so I'm pretty attached to them, and haven't really spread out. There are a few problems with them, though. The first is that the lead is soft and breaks really easily (their website says that the leads are hard, but they're lying), especially if you're using a crappy sharpener. Make sure that you want to use these pencils that you buy a nice sharpener, because it'll make everything a lot easier. I'd suggest trying out a range of hand-sharpeners and using the one that works best. Electric sharpeners can work, but it can be a lot harder digging out broken lead from electric sharpeners then it is hand sharpeners. Prismas can also get kinda pricey if you use a large range of colors. I personally have a 72-count box of pencils, which cost about $70 (it's about a dollar per pencil in the US), and there are at least 10 pencils that I hardly ever use. You can buy prismas individually, so I'd suggest getting a few colors you know you'll use over buying a huge set that you might wind up only using half of.

Paint

When it comes to paint, both watercolor and acrylic, I am really not picky at all. I've gotten really nice results with cheap crayola watercolors, as well as nice tube watercolors. I currently use a set of the little pigment-pallet that is slightly more up-scale from Crayola, but was still pretty cheap. (I can't remember the brand, and I'm not sure where the box is right now, unfortunately) It's got the primary colors, a few secondaries, two shades of brown, and black, as well as a small tube of white. I can pretty much blend anything I need with this, so I'm happy with it. It came with a sable-hair brush (a sable is a type of marten) which is really nice. Animal-hair brushes work better then plastic brushes, so I'd suggest investing in some (funkicarus knows more about this then I do, so check out the post linked about for more info).

For acrylics, I'll use just about anything. I haven't got a preferred brand, I just use what works. The main thing I look for in paint is that it isn't watery - as in, when I lay the colors down, it's solid, and the canvas (or whatever I'm painting on) doesn't show through. I've used Basic brand paints, which have really nice white, red, green, and purple, but terribly watery yellow and blue. So I have a huge mix of paints, and I'm not even sure what all they are. Another thing I'm picky about is that it has to be in a tube - I tend to mix paints right on my brush, so if I have to scrape paint out of a little jar so that I don't wind up mixing colors in the base paint, I get a big annoyed. It's sort of like how you can't stick the knife you used for jelly in the peanut butter jar before you clean it, because it isn't allowed to get mixed. Having tubes of paint instead of jars keeps this from happening. Same thing about the brushes - animal hair works better, check out funkicarus's post for info on that. I have a mix of brushes from different brands, in different sizes and shapes, so again, I'm not too picky as long as it's not plastic.


So, there ya go. My traditional art supplies. As for digital, I use Photoshop Elements 3 and a Graphire 10x8 tablet. I've used Elements for so long that the interface for normal Photoshop confuses and angers me, so I stick with what I have, even if there are less options in it. As for my tablet, I prefer the larger ones because it's closer to the size of a normal sheet of paper, and I don't have to fuss with the tablet-to-screen size ratio as much. The Graphire is nice, but I've used it pretty heavily, the stylus is dying, and some of the pressure points are messed up, so I might upgrade to the Intuos (or however it's spelled) soon.


Any other artists that watch me? What kind of supplies do you use?

Meme yanked from eibborn!

Association Meme: Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

And eib gave meeee:
1. Sci-fi
2. Pokemon
3. WoA
4. Original Characters
5. Sabrous

( Elaborations )

Hey guys, I'm now officially part of the pokemonathon! My first post is over here!

free art meme:
comment in this post get to request a sketch of a character of their choosing from me. In return, they have to post this in their journal, regardless of drawing ability level. If you absolutely can't draw, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to offer drabbles or icons or something instead.

Yeeeeah.

I've got... a lot of nerdy stuff to talk about. Buuut I'll do that later. School band concert tonight! I'm playing Alto Sax, and this is my first time being first chair (besides freshman year, when I was the only sax, and got 1st chair by forfeit). Hoping it goes well and I don't have to strange our god awful clarinetists.

Uncensored female nude. Sort of NSFW. Click at own risk.


So, more work on the 100 drawing challenge. This is number 13, 'Misfortune'. When I started sketching it, I couldn't help but think of Carmina Burana. More specifically, the second stanza to O Fortuna: Sors immanis/ et inanis,/ rota tu volubilis,/ status malus,/ vana salus/ semper dissolubilis,/ obumbrata/ et velata/ mihi quoque niteris;/ nunc per ludum/ dorsum nudum/ fero tui sceleris. (Fate - monstrous and empty, you whirling wheel, you are malevolent, well-being is vain and always fades to nothing, shadowed and veiled you plague me too; now through the game I bring my bare back to your villainy.) So I used the 'wheel of fortune' and the 'threads of life', and the sun and moon to tie in that whole fortune/fate/life and death sort of thing. Yeah.

So, I'm really pissed off at my school. I went to register and pick up my new schedule last week. My schedule was all sorts of fucked up (5 AP classes that I did not ask for, and no gym or electives, which I NEED to graduate.) I went by there yesterday, but none of the counselors that could fix it were around. I went down again today, but all of the counselors were in a meeting until 3, and I'm getting my senior pictures taken at 4, so I really couldn't sick around and wait. I'm going back tomorrow, and if no one is there to help me, I swear to god, I'm going to massacre something.

Seriously, our counselors are paid about three times the amount of money our teachers make, yet they are NEVER around. During the school year, they don't show up until 8 - after school starts, so no one can get things fixed before school. Lunch time, the time most of the students go to get stuff worked out? The counselors go out to eat for an hour and a half. And they leave at exactly 3. School ends at 3:15, so you don't even get a chance to talk to them after school. kaldkfghfdjkghaf WHAT THE FUCK, SCHOOL? WHAT. THE. FUCK?

Last night I was just kinda slapped in the face by a flood of inspiration, which prompted me to work on the 100 sketch challenge. It happened again this morning. So today I have a large sketch dump for you guys.

( Numbers 4 through 11 )

Tomorrow I start going to driving school. I'm finally gonna get my learners permit. Ick.

Also, it looks like I'll have a job... right in time for school to start up again. And they want me to work 10-6 both Saturday and Sunday. Where I am not allowed to sit down, read, or do homework. Where I get no set breaks to go and chill for ten minutes. Where I only get a 30 minute lunch break. aghfjlghfjk but I need money. I'm going to talk to them, see if I can't work afternoons during the week, and one weekend day. I'm also going to have to ask for a weekend off each month for a while; mid September I'll need off so I can go to NDK (I've already paid for all three days, and have invested money in a costume, and can't get a refund on any of it), mid October so I can go visit a college, Thanksgiving weekend so we can go to my sister's place, and December for Christmas. It would be a lot easier to trade shifts for one person on one weekend day, rather then both and have to work every day during the week to make up the hours.

But I've worked there before, and the bosses are pretty good about scheduling around high schooler's schedules. (But they also want me to work Tues, Weds, Thurs weekdays, but I need one of those days off to do martial arts.)