| Urban Decay | 4:46 pm, August 30th, 2010
I used to be hell into Ghost in the Shell, which is an old-ish Japanese cyberpunk anime set in the future. I recently came across this amv on youtube:
….and I totally want to watch the movie again. Is it not the most awesomest video ever? Even after this long, I don’t think I’ve come across an anime as good as GitS. I haven’t even seen much of the tv series but I think I’ll start watching all that now since I’ve kinda stopped watching True Blood and Dexter!
Some of the imagery in GitS actually really reminds me of the walled city in Hong Kong, which is something I find incredibly fascinating. When I see photos and videos of the place, it’s like watching something out of a post apocalyptic sci fi movie, and it’s kinda amazing how recent the place was before it was torn down. I’m sure if it were still there today, it would be incredibly scary to go in:
When we were forced to play Second Life for uni, I think the only thing I was interested in doing in the game was visiting the walled city this guy had created. I went in, and it was cool, but simulating something as amazing as that just isn’t possible. The feel of the place is really intriguing though, and I really wish it were still here today as like a preserved historical monument or something so you could walk around in it and take a look at how they got lighting and the rooftop gardens and stuff like that. It’s so dystopian like and CREEPY inside i think that’s what’s so fascinating about it.
I was also looking at macabre japanese kids art earlier, and as much as I hate stupid/morbid takes on kids fairytales and such, I thought these were pretty cool.
I just really love stuff like THIS- urban decay and grungey imagery especially.
| Lucid dreaming | 10:35 pm, August 19th, 2010
I had a most amazing dream last night, which I thought I’d share with you all…because I think it could be classified as a lucid dream.
I actually woke up several times during it, and quickly fell back asleep because I was in a state of half awakeness/half sleep. I don’t know if you’d call it exactly lucid dreaming…but I made sure the protagonist didn’t die and at the end I knew that everything was going to be ok because I would wake up…but it made me feel so many things at once I tried to write it all down and I COULDN’T. I usually have my phone on my bedside table, and this is what I wrote AS SOON AS I GOT UP:
Csn covtr time and space- parent tterap Luke but show abs friends make copies of thrmselves. H
They get sentences to self execution but she swings the flowerr swing put of the way into the rock wall, smashing it.
Super saiyan mode- logs tumbling down; labd fives way and now they’re floating, turtles dace them and titled are floating as they’re faking, qrtiting next to bushes.
Yeah. I know. I gave up soon after I wrote that.
My iphone can be pretty annying sometimes because it autocorrects stuff, but basically the whole dream centred around this girl who was kind of Promethea like. She also reminded me of Zena the warrior princess. Anyway, there are two separate storylines happening at once.
I’m with a few coworkers from work in one part- probably because I stayed up a good part of the night editing some clips for the annual catalogue party. We come across an old abandoned building and I feel really creeped out. Keith, one of the chefs, opens the door and peers inside. We all kind of walk around inside and its dusty and light shines through cracks in the windows. There’s another door, and we open that. And we step inside, and then there’s another door, and another door. It was like an inifinite amount of doors like when you look at yourself in two mirrors at the same time. It was kinda trippy and I felt more and more creeped out as more doors kept appearing out of nowhere. It was like I was trapped in an infinite amount of doors and I desperately craved to be outside in some greenery.
Then all of a sudden we’re in the middle of a forest and I’m standing there, watching an execution of a mighty female warrior by a native tribe of some sort. Maybe American indian. Only she’s lying with her face towards the sky, and the guillotine is actually a wooden plank adorned with colourful flowers. When the first attempt doesn’t harm her, they make her stand up and they swing the plank at her neck. At this point I’m kind of awake, and kind of asleep so I could feel myself getting really angry because- they were killing the flowers, they were killing her, and I got the idea they were just barbarians. So I “made her” push the plank away though the force of her psychic powers, and the huge plank flies into a clifface. The cliff breaks into hundreds of wooden logs and they start raining down upon everyone and I feel happy. The land gives way under our feet, and I can feel myself falling into nothing. Purple and blues and stars whiz by as I fall further and further.
Time then kinda slows down and it feels like I’m falling down a rabbit hole like in Alice in Wonderland. I pass by a lot of greenery and shrubs which I know the warrior princess saved, and there’s suddenly a lot of turtles, who have grey long beards. These turtles are writing on long manuscripts next to the shrubbery and as I’m falling I wonder what they’re writing about. I’m kind of in a state of…god knows what…because I can hear stuff going on outside my room but I’m still dreaming of falling and scholarly turtles and it didn’t really faze me at all. Then….I’m forced to wake up because I have to go to work.
It was a pretty epic dream. There was more, but I forgot a lot as soon as I woke up :/ Oh well…
The image of the wise turtle sounds familiar though. I can’t quite remember where I’ve seen it but I know I’ve seen the image somewhere before. It was really cool though!
Anyway I won’t dwell too much on it- got a whole load of IKEA shizz to do tonight. I have to edit a video for the party as I said earlier, and it’s looking pretty….uh….eclectic.
I may even post it here once I’m done! I won’t be at the party to see it played so I won’t know until next week if we’ve won (it’s for an inter-departmental prize thing). We totally have a great chance. Especially with my mad editing skills. Heh.
Yeah. Still working on that photography stuff for the site and other things I need to add. I’ve been pretty busy lately but I’ll have some free time reallly really soon!!! Yay!
| Puffins! | 4:50 pm, August 13th, 2010
So last week it was horseshoe crabs.
This week…it’s PUFFINS.
Oh my freakin god. Puffins are the reason why I LOVE BEING ON THIS PLANET.
They’re like toucans or hornbills or rockhopper penguins, only cooler. And they’re SHO CUTE!!!!
Fun facts about puffins:
- They’re sometimes called sea parrots or clowns of the sea.
- They have penguin colour-age and are actually closely related to penguins!!!
- They can swim underwater to a depth of 200m and sometimes even eat fish underwater.
- Puffins often form nests on rocky terrain/clifftops or in burrows where they’ll lay one egg a year.
- Puffins swim with their wings, not their feet!
They’re pretty awesome!
| Motivation vs. Intimidation | 9:54 pm, August 10th, 2010
So I’ve uploaded most of the stuff I was going to this week- mostly new illustrations and drawings though, which I still need to update and add descriptions and stuff (something which I’m going to do right after this…or maybe tomorrow)! I’m working on adding photos but I have LOTS to go through, so it’s taking a while! I also have to upload all that ‘free stuff’ I promised – though I have to say, they’re not very exciting unless you’re talking about the Photoshop brushes/patterns I made a while ago.
I’m kind of sad though, because I’ve lost some original fireworks and ai files which contained the original illustrations due to me losing my USB, so I can’t make some images bigger than they already are! 
I was also going through some old folders with some really old drawings in them, and it brought me back….waaayy back….to the Paint Shop Pro days. The days when I used to use rasters to draw instead of vectors because I didn’t know any better. It was quite cool though, and very nostalgic.
I found this old sketch which I drew when I was like, 12 or something, and because it was the first drawing I tried to make digital I thought it was funny it was still there on my hard drive. Funny story behind that too: I scanned it in the computer to try make it into a digital drawing but found out I actually couldn’t figure much stuff out after messing around a bit in Photoshop. So I signed up to some random Photoshop enthusiasts forum and posted my image and a question to see if any pro artists could give me a few tips on how to go about making it into a digital drawing and colouring it in and such.
I suppose my drawing must’ve looked extremely juvenile (it was an A4 sketch of a fantasy-type character holding a sword…I was very much into fantasy back then and still am!) because pretty much EVERYONE on the board laughed at me and told me not to bother- except for this one kind gentleman who took me through a few steps and how to use the basic tools in Photoshop and the best way to colour it in. I suppose the most important thing was, he was the first person that actually encouraged me to try doing something about me wanting to turn my drawing digital…instead of trolling me off the internet (which wasn’t hard back then because it was all dial up)! I can still remember that to this day and that has definitely taught me the importance of encouragement and motivation instead of intimidation.
I look at other people’s illustrations and artworks now and still get really intimidated about how I’ll probably never be as good as them. In fact, today I was just looking at this woman’s work, and they’re pretty amazing. I’m actually pretty jealous of anyone who can draw people, because drawing people are my worst nightmare.
I guess the only way to get better is to keep chipping away at that rock, and now that I have gotten back into all this, I am going to try get a million times better by this time next year!
I’m also using a new monitor today!! Well I got it about a week or a bit ago but I just got the cable to hook it up to my Macbook today. And it’s AMAZING. I’ve never had a monitor this big in my entire LIFE. And it’s all pretty much thanks to Cam. <3 I can draw stuff on a huge screen now!!! It is seriously the best thing ever.
I also rediscovered Fireworks!! I used to draw on Fireworks ages ago, before I realized Illustrator had a lot more features for print/web graphics, but the one thing that I really like about Fireworks is that the pen tool has a line coming from the cursor so you can angle paths better. I don’t know, I just think- why doesn’t Illustrator have that?! It’s so useful and makes things SO much easier! I know Fireworks is mostly for graphics/webpage integration but drawing on that thing is awesome. Maybe I’ll try using it again and see which program I like better. 
Inspiration wise, I had another weird dream last night. It was kind of inception like because it involved a lot of elevators and going up and down into different realms, but the annoying thing is, I can hardly even remember where I end up because I forgot it all before I was about to write it down. You know that feeling when you’re just on the brink of remembering something important? That happened to me today- with that dream- but it wouldn’t come back and it was disappointing 
Anyway I should probably go finish off an ad I need to do for dotdotdash and resize photos and stuff.
Goodnight internet!
| Metaphorical Realism | 5:26 pm, August 7th, 2010
Before I get onto uploading stuff, I had to share my love for the artist Vladimir Kush.
I don’t actually have many favourite fine artists or influences in general, but surrealism is definitely my favourite genre and if I had to name a certain influence for anything I draw creatively, I would have to add Vladimir Kush to the list.
His paintings are simply sublime.
I first learned about him a few years ago when I was looking up some info on Salvador Dali, and his work has stayed in my mind ever since. I remember seeing this painting:
…and thinking if only I could draw like that. In fact the ideas conveyed in almost all his works contain some sort of mix between realism and whimsical dreams, which is something I like to add in most of the stuff I draw.
I was going through my old folders and saw some of his paintings, and still can’t quite believe how amazing his work is.
They really are timeless.
| Inspiration and awakening | 1:21 am, August 5th, 2010
I woke up this morning and as I was driving in the morning sun, I was struck by a random bout of inspiration. I love these moments, because you can just ‘see’ images and scenes impossible in real life in your head…and sometimes it just looks and sounds so cool it HAS to be drawn. It’s bizarre but really fun and I wrote a whole heap of stuff down for what I might turn to later for inspiration, though I probably have to thank the sleeping flowers and polluted city scapes for the epiphanous moment too.
I have in fact been feeling pretty inspired lately…..actually probably ever since I read more about them crabs. They are seriously amazing. If only everything in this world were as marvellous as those creatures. I think the inspiration has gone a bit to my head because I had THE awesomest, wackiest dream last night.
It involved driving to a random unmarked town fenced off with barbed wire. I suppose it was like a family trip thing because everyone was there, and I remember staring out the window feeling very “bored and despondent”. Suddenly there are huge, gigantic, ENORMOUS buildings that tower over us in our small little rustbucket, and we’re all like wooahhh. These buildings- they’re massive. Like warehouse massive. They are also very futuristic and chrome like and there’s funnels and chutes and pipes coming from all of them at different angles and shapes. Smoke is coming out from chimneys on a few of them – its like we drove straight into a deserted alien town or something. Or perhaps even Area 51. Only it was out in the desert, it was daytime, and there seemed to be no people around but US. It was very odd.
Anyhow, we stop the car and start wandering around. We enter a building and inside it looks like a rundown hotel lobby. It comes to my attention that the entire ‘town’ of buildings are abandoned, and possibly haunted by strange aliens or beings. Wandering around the building felt supernatural-ish. I remember walking over crumbled tiles and looking out windows from high above in the towers, and my brothers voices get farther and farther away, til I realize I am completely alone.
I go to a window and look out to the horizon, and I just see endless desert. Just sand, and blue sky. I begin to wonder how the buildings disappeared, and then I sense a force behind…or around me…and then I wake up to the sound of my alarm. It was weird. Actually, it’s weird that I remember all of this now because when I woke up I didn’t really think much of it. But in retrospect, I think it was a pretty weird dream.
Probably will come back to that in the future when I’m stuck for ideas!
Anyway, I’ve basically finished A layout for this site, but I’m still kind of undecided about it. You know that feeling when it feels like it may be missing something? Or a lot of things? That’s the vibe I’m getting at the moment, the only problem is I don’t really know what to change. It is hard. Though on a landmark note, it IS one of the first layouts I have done 99% of in Illustrator. I just really wanted EVERYTHING to be 100% original; not from some free stock background or brush or pattern, especially since this is a site mainly showcasing MY work…so in that sense I guess I kind of did what I set out to do. In fact, I’m looking at it right now and thinking- the perspective in it is ALL WRONG. I may put it up later when I have time and see what I think about it then.
I had this really cool idea for another layout though, which involves the horizontal scrolly thing happening again, but I may put up the newer one first before making another one because it will probably take a lonngg time to figure out. It involves seamless timelines, horseshoe crabs, wires and plants. Lots and lots of plants. I’ve got it all mapped out in my head, I just need to find a way to translate it onto screen. If I do manage to finish it it will probably end up being layout of the century for me.
…Seriously.
A seamless horizontal layout was actually something I was going for in the current layout, but because things stuffed up and photoshop was just way too slow, I made little panels instead. And I found out, my site actually does work on my iphone! So yay!
Either way, both of the possible upcoming layouts involve horseshoe crabs.
Yeah, yeah I am obsessed with them. Whatever.
The other day I drew a horseshoe crab, just coz I thought they looked cool:
It’s still actually in progress still so I’ll probably add more highlights and stuff later when I have more time. The colours a bit off and this is why: the colour profiles on my mac are retarded and the color profiles seem to change at random. I constantly have this problem with photoshop too – like it doesn’t save colours correctly coz the profiles/settings are different. I didn’t think it’d happen in illustrator as well, but it did, and thankfully there’s an option to saturate colours so I just did that and saved it normally. I dunno. It’s annoying. I should probably synchronize it all through Bridge but I really can’t be bothered right now.
On a site related note, I updated most of the thumbnails for everything….and that’s about it. I kind of need to organize files on my computer and hosting server at the moment because everything is a huge, huge mess and its causing me to lose files and forget where things are then I end up accidentally deleting them which causes me to lose original files which SUCKS because I don’t have enough space on my hard drive to make a complete backup and I seem to have lost my USB stick which had all my old old work and stuff on it.
Ugh. Anyway I seem to have ranted on for quite a bit and I don’t really know how but I did just want to write down that dream sequence so I wouldn’t forget it in the future!
Look out for the new layout- it’s coming! Soon. I know I keep saying that but I’m definitely hopefully probably going to do it tomorrow.
Or today, rather. Uh….in about 20 hours or so.
0:-)
