Drawing of the Day

Getting a little crazy again...
Don't feel bad, even I don't really want to look at this drawing. Normal posting again when the semester's over (next Monday).

Watching Beowulf

I should preface this review by admitting that I haven't read Beowulf since freshman year of high school and I'm not honestly sure if I got around to reading it then. This will not be a review about how closely or horribly the movie follows the book, and honestly I've lost patience with that type of review anyway: when you go to see a movie you should watch it as just that: a movie. It's an ADAPTATION people.

In all fairness, most of the negative reviews haven't focused on the movie's relationship to the book, nor really have the positive ones. This may be because everyone else has moved beyond the "They raped that book!" review, but I think it's far more likely that most of the reviewers have as vague of a memory of the actual poem as I do. I mean, I know the STORY, everyone knows the story, but details? It's just as easy to believe they got those right as wrong.

I have to say that this movie wasn't what I expected. For one thing, although most of the reviews I read were either bitching or raving about the CGI, I had no idea the whole thing was done in CGI rather a combo of live action and CGI like Spiderman or something. The CGI was good, possibly up there with Final Flight of the Osiris from The Animatrix.

The CGI was very good, and I'm always impressed with good CGI, but I can understand why people are complaining about it. The main complaint is that CGI will never have the liveliness of real human actors, but in this I think they're missing the mark slightly. The problem isn't that the CGI characters aren't expressive enough or alive enough, the problem, which is just a bit distracting, is that they aren't human. There's something a bit alien about them which we can accept in cartoons but not in creatures that are so close to being real. With a dog we might not even be able to tell the difference but we're so keyed into the visuals of what make human beings that it's impossible not to notice. Some day they may get to the point where it is indistinguishable but I'm not sure what the point of that is, the cool thing about CGI is all the weird stuff you can do with it. Which the movie Beowulf did take advantage of, in camera angles, character movement, and of course CGI monsters which were fully integrated into the story since they were no more CGI than anything else.

Personally, although I was often noticing the CGI, it didn't bother me and I was able to get easily lost in the story. I think the real problem with the movie was nothing in the movie at all: it was the previews.

I don't know whether anyone remembers the movie In the Bedroom. It was a quite a good movie, came out in the beginning of the decade. The previews promised a thriller with a jealous ex-husband, a young lover and anxious parents. Instead the audience was stunned when the sweet young lover, a likable, attractive young man, was shot and killed in the first half hour of a rather long movie. Although there was a great deal of suspense in the movie, what we had instead of a high excitement, shallow thriller was a deep psychological tragedy involving families and killers. I'm not sure how it did in the box office or after, but I know I wasn't prepared to watch what I payed for. This is an example of lousy marketing that I think Beowulf suffers from as well.

It's not quite as far off as In the Bedroom, and in a way I think that might make it even more problematic, because people will go into the movie assuming it's the TRYING TO BE the same type of mainstream epic adventure/fantasy movie that they were shown in the preview. Instead we get something that's a little, but JUST a little bit off.

My main thought at the end of the movie was, yup, that screenplay was written by Neil Gaiman alright. If you go into the movie expecting Stardust instead of The 13th Warrior you'll be much better off. Think of this movie as Shrek, only just for grown-ups, a bit more serious (not too much mind you), more realistic visually, and a lot more violent.On a side note, fantastic job by Brendan Gleeson, once again, in the best-friend-of-main-character role.

Images stolen from various places which they link to if you click on them.

Drawing of the Day

This is in response to the Illustration Friday Night theme of the week: "Screw Asylum."
Actually I got a little confused because the theme last week was immunity so this picture would probably better fit the theme of "screw immunity" (the hanged man has a sign reading "diplomat" around his neck) but could just as easily be someone seeking political asylum or religious asylum or... oh forget it, it's a guy being hung by a mob.

This is also the first thing I've done with brush pen that I've been marginally happy with. Unfortunately it doesn't show up quite as well in this size, but I still think it's the best thing I've done in brush pen (which isn't saying much). I'm slowly getting more comfortable in that medium which can only be a good thing.

Drawing of the Day

This is the first conceptual sketch I tried for the cover.
It might be hard to see what I'm trying to do since I gave it up pretty early on. Initially I wanted the figure's head to come almost to the top of the book, with the reflected head a bit further from the bottom. Once I drew it out however I realized that I didn't like the balance of the composition and that I wouldn't be able to get enough detail in such a small area.
So on the second I made the figure bigger which also allows me to make the space behind her larger.I like this version much better. In fact, I like it so much that although I'd intended to do this with some degree of realism (as much as I do normally in my style) I'm tempted to leave it like it is. Here's a slightly different version, but I like the one above better:Any thoughts?

Making a Book

This will not be a post about creating a lovely handmade gift with some decorative Japanese Stab binding and confetti rice paper. Not that I have a problem with hand made books or Japanese Stab binding (though I do find double-fan adhesive binding politically offensive) , I took a class called Artist's Book and Paper Making at Notre Dame lots of years ago and am actually much happier to have taken it now than I was at the time.

No, this post is about a project that one of my professors sprung on our fiction class this Saturday.

His idea is that since we are all ultimately working on having books published (or else what are we doing in an MFA program? Honestly?) We should start to put together a "book" from what we have so far. This entails getting a binder, arranging everything to it's best advantage (kind of a non-issue for me since I'm working on a novel), putting in title pages and acknowledgments, a table of contents, an about the author.Now this sounds a bit elementary school at first, but the more I think about it the more I'm getting into it. Dawson, one of my classmates, pointed out that it's both exciting and helpful to see your work in a form resembling a book, even if it is just a 3 ring binder. That also makes it easier to visualize as a book, in a bookstore, with someone, maybe even a few people(!) wanting to possibly read it! Hey, we all need a little extra motivation sometimes. In my case I'm also hoping to create some cover art for the book, not just to give it an authentic feel but because I've been playing around with some cover ideas and this will force me to sit down and actually craft some initial attempts.

So if my "Drawing of the Day"s this week are all thesis obsessed and with no explanation provided (don't want to spoil the story) please bear with me (all two of you that read my blog). I'm making a book.

Cool CopyCat

A little while ago I posted about a photographer I'd stumbled on with cool invented reality type photos. He does scenes that range from fantasy flying to diving to high speed bike races and they're all pretty fun.

Well the writer of the blog who initially pointed me to his site decided to copy his technique for her Christmas cards. Personally it's a bit religious for my taste, but it's a freaking cool looking photo, along with commentary of how she did it. Go to the December 3rd entry, she doesn't seem to have pages for each entry.

Drawing of the Day

Here's a drawing of a red tailed hawk from a photo found in a google search.
One of the nice things about soft pencil is how quick it is to draw with. This drawing took about half an hour to finish. Initially I was wanting to do a study of a hawk wing and ran across the picture. I liked it so much I decided to just draw this instead.

In Your Dreams

Can you read in your dreams? Supposedly no one can. I think it's got something to do with the part of the brain which is active when you're asleep. The language centers are not awake, therefore you can't read.I think I first became aware of this question when I was a kid and saw a Batman (cartoon) episode where Batman realized he was dreaming when he picked up a book and it was full of gibberish letters: no words. It made me wonder because I often read in dreams, especially in that half-sleep state where you're about to wake up. I'll be reading a wonderful story, but then I wake up and can usually no longer remember it.

Of course this isn't quite the same as real reading, what I'm dreaming about is the action of reading, the ingestion of a perfect story. This has nothing to do with language. Sometimes I did remember what I'd read, but if I tried to picture the words on paper I'd be unable to do so.

Since that time I've been curious about reading in dreams, and whenever I dream of reading I try to remember the appearance of the words. I've succeeded at least once, remembering the image of at least parts of words. In my dream I was chatting with my brother on AIM and the word fragments I definitely remembered reading were: heronma (part of my brother's old screen name), sweater, and Ameri (part of American). There might have been more, but those are the ones I can remember now.

When you are reading but not reading in dreams, usually you see nothing but scrambled letters. My theory is that human beings have the image of letters memorized in their brains, but for words we put them together in different arrangements. One is visual memory, one is language memory (probably not a scientific term). It can be assumed that in dreams visual memory is active, but language memory is not. So maybe when I saw segments and even a few full words, it was because my brain had put those entire words into visual memory the same way it does with letters.

I've noticed in dreams that sometimes I think I've read something definite, and then when I go back to check, the letters have shifted and it says something else entirely, or nothing at all. When I notice, inevitably I wake up.

Drawing of the Day

You've heard of Blind Contour Drawing?
That's not exactly what this was, but close. We left William's party tonight at about a quarter to midnight so I decided to do my drawing in the car on the way home. While wearing gloves.

Sleep Deprived

So I got about an hour and a half of sleep last night.
I can't really complain, (because I know no one reading will have any sympathy) since the reason I had insomnia problems above and beyond the norm last night was because my sleep schedule is so completely screwed. In my defense, I think most people (most non-morning people that is) when not kept to a semi-regular schedule by school (my classes are mostly at night) or a job (my job has super flexible hours) will sleep in. The trouble is once you start sleeping in until eleven, if you get to bed a little later than usual (read: 4 am instead of 2) maybe the next day you get up at noon. And then of course you get sucked into finishing your book the next night and don't get to bed until 4:30 or 5, and getting up at 1pm doesn't seem all that unreasonable. Really I can't even claim that this is all fine and good during the week, because I barely wake up, the day feels hazy and dim, and after only a few hours it's night again, and I've got nothing done that I needed/intended to do. The more immediate issue is that when I've slowly fallen into a 4:00am- 1:00pm sleep schedule, and need to be a half hour early to my 9 am class, 40 minutes away on Saturday morning. Yech.

Anyway in my sleep deprived state I'm not up for much as far as intellectual activities go, so I've spent the last hour or so building cartoon robots online.

Which brings me to the main point of this whole post, which is that while searching for more cartoon robot building sites, I stumbled on an OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) talking about the science of Star Wars (Oregon and Star Wars, what more could you want?) which gives step-by-step instructions on how to build a balloon powered mini-hovercraft. Too cool. This reminds me of the activities I used to bring along with me when I was thirteen and babysitting. It looks pretty easy, but since I don't have kids I probably won't be actually building it any time soon (we have enough junk around with out adding a broken down hovercraft) but it gave me a nice moment of nostalgia, plus I think it's a pretty clever activity. Just goes to show you that Oregon rocks. OMSI by the way is a great science museum. Admittedly it's been a few (15) years since I've been inside, but in my memory it has the same feel as the Cleveland Science Center (another wonderful kid friendly Science Museum). If you ever make your way to Portland you should definitely check it out. Or for that matter if you make it to Cleveland, you should check out our version, but Portland will forever be my favorite city.

Drawing of the Day

It's called: "I just wanted to walk my fish."Don't ask what it means. Some things are better left alone. No normal post today, I've got class early tomorrow.

By the way, does anyone know why my pictures now pop up a download box if you click on them instead of going to a larger version? The html appears to be identical except for the file names, but maybe I missed something...

Hey look at me, I'm posting again!

I met with my thesis adviser today. It was surprisingly good.

Sheila's wonderful, it helps that she actually likes my writing but she also has good advice (which I suppose is the whole point of being in grad school). I've been struggling like mad over the latest section in my novel so it was nice when I went in with it, half finished, and had Sheila tell me I should leave it as is. She thought the abrupt sections were intentional.

I'm fine with that, this section's been a pain in my ass, so if my adviser thinks it's finished enough I'm more than happy to move on. Meanwhile, I'm up to 94 pages. W00t. I'm hoping to hit 100 before the end of the semester (I've got two weeks, but I've also got a paper due in my nonfiction class), I think it's doable. Then I can ignore it over winter break and go back with a (theoretically) fresh mind next semester.

My hope is that I'll be entirely done by the end of Spring Semester so I can leave it alone during the summer (or just do structural revisions) and be a bit more clearheaded for revising next fall. The other reason why I can't really have much left to do in the fall is that I'm getting married in the middle of October, Honeymoon to follow, which could make cramming in much of a novel difficult.

Drawing of the Day

This was drawn for Illustration Friday. The topic was "The Zoo."This is probably a little dark for Illustration Friday, but it's what popped into my head. This is a combination of #1 micron and brushpen. I'm starting to dig the brushpen although I'm not really using it to it's full potential.

Drawing of the Day

It's supposed to be a hammer but it looks more like a picket sign. Meh.

Drawing of the Day

Here's my contribution for the day.
Is it next semester yet?

Amazon Ad Ons

I added on a few Amazon Widgets to my blog... The main one is my wish list, on the side bar. This is mostly on there for my parents and relatives who always tell me they don't know what to get me for Christmas. There's also an Amazon search, at the bottom of the sidebar, please do use this if you're doing any Amazon shopping over the holidays... Amazon gives me money if you get to their site through my blog, and end up buying something. That goes for any of the amazon links on my site.

Drawing of the Day

My brain hurts. I'm buried under homework and school crap.No post today, maybe not for a few days. I'll try to keep up with drawing something or other though. I just can't think right now.

Drawing of the Day

This is a drawing copied from The Nude Figure.It's a good book full of poses, comes in vary handy when I'm trying to check proportions of a freehand figure. The model in this photo kind of disturbed me because she looks like a friend of mine if she dyed her hair black... fortunately (?) my drawing doesn't really look like my friend.

New Ideas

I recently joined a new blog called Illustration Friday Night. They post a word or phrase every week and contributors have the option of posting an illustration in response. The blog itself is a response to a blog called Illustration Friday which, as they put it, tends to be a little tamer in theme. Friday Night is supposedly a bit edgier or, as they put it: "the only manifesto is to keep things fairly real and raw." We'll see how that goes, I think having a space to post, with decent artists to sort of spurn me could be very helpful. There's another site I wanted to join, Sugar Frosted Goodness! but I think they actually want you to be a professional Illustrator to contribute, which I'm obviously not at this point. Some of the artwork on there is really amazing, my favorites are Michelle White and Mattias Adolfsson.

My posting will probably be a little scant over the next few days because I'm dealing with finals preliminaries...

Drawing of the Day

Today's drawing falls under the category of things I should never show my shrink.Actually this drawing isn't all that screwed up compared to many things I draw, but I do seem to have a fixation with things growing out of character's heads. Not sure why. Here's another drawing I did some time ago that shows a similar theme. This one was intended to be a greeting card cover with the caption: "Having a thorny day?" And the inside reading: "Here's hoping tomorrow is more enchanting." The gag being from the sleeping beauty faerie tale where the princes who went to wake her would get stuck in the enchanted rose thorns. Notice the roots growing out of his hair.