2012: My plans.
Whelp! It's been three days into 2012 and I have been thinking and reflecting on the year that just came to an end. It's been a pretty good year for the most part and I'm looking toward this new year as a chance to try out new things and continue doing the stuff that's working. One thing I really hoped to accomplish towards Christmas time, was that I would have finally been able to leave Walmart. Though I didn't accomplish that as I wanted to(especially with stores only hiring for the Holiday's while hospitals/labs having hiring freezes), I'm...actually not depressed about it despite what was going on for nearly 6 months! I'll keep tying to look for something else though, I'm hell bent especially if that Mayan calendar stuff is right! to move on and do better things professionally and personally! You know how I've mentioned a couple of times that I do volunteer work at this hospital? Well I can't go into a lot of detail without locking this entry, but what I can say is, for 2 years now I've been a research assistant and I love it. Apparently the doctor I work with loves things to because, she's been dropping hints for a while about applying for a job there, saying if she had her way, she'd hire me to work with the other undergrads that assist her in writing research papers and conducting research for the papers, or that she'd pull a few strings to see me hired by someone. Sadly, as with other places this hospital has a hiring freeze going on and because of unions it would be difficult to hire someone who's off the street but it's something. So with that, I'm keeping my fingers crossed...
On the art front, I can see improvements were made in 2012. I'm not getting stuck with anatomy as much when it comes to sketching things. Actually, I find myself visiting anatomy reference sites more, putting in the extra time to make sure things look right and make more anatomical "sense". As a result, when it comes to the digital inking stage with Paint Tool Sai, I've found myself going back and fixing my sketches, and with traditional inking, I'll sit there with my electric eraser and look over stuff before I bring out my pens. Bottom line: Leah is more careful with her anatomy. As for colouring, I've learned a few new things thanks to artists streaming their work or me just experimenting with stuff and it's had good results...I think! So let's take a look at the end results of my efforts shall we?
Now some of these should look familiar to you guys. After all it's artwork for my, "Leah takes over Anime North" project! As of right now, I've finished the lineart for picture number 9 of 10and hope to get those fully coloured soon. I'm even going to work on these at the laptop if needed, despite not having coloured something from start to finish in years. I'm a desk girl, what can I say?
And now for the important part, my plans for 2012! I'm hesitant to say "resulutions" because some of these you can't exactly complete in a year!
My 2012 Plans!
Art.
o1.A little while ago, I had an epiphany...I want to make this art thing some kind of side career! Now this is something I've thought about for a very, very long time, but I've always thought you had to be one of those crazy talented, super young, insanely popular people on deviantArt/online to be taken seriously when you say, "I want an art career."..But with age, experience and being exposed to different art styles, I've learned otherwise. So with that in mind, outside of the usual anatomy improvement/style development/I need to get my name out there. I have one idea that I plan to put into action once picture number 9 is coloured or all of them are finished. An idea that could make me a little money while I'm at it, I'm sure you all can guess what it is. If not...it's taking commissions! But any other ideas or suggestions on this one are welcome!
o2. I'm going to make an effort to be a little more prolific this year, or at least produce enough new art to fill one of those "year in art" memes!
o3. Buy better art supplies! Livejournal, I have a confession to make...maybe because I'm a mostly digital artist, and can make things "prettier" in photoshop, but I own some really crappy pencils, erasers and other stuff that I've been sketching with for a while. A good chunk of my time is spent darkening my sketches so that I can actually ink them and I know things would be a little easier if I worked with darker pencils but I'm a bad procrastinator who can't find the "time" to look for 2B mechanical pencils :D!. Luckily my birthday and payday are within days of each other, so as a gift to myself, I'm doing a little shopping on dickblick, jetpens and stationeryart.
o4. Break out of my habit of drawing on printer paper! Okay from the time I started making little doodles with my crayola markers as a little kid until now, I've mostly drawn on printer paper. I've tried doing the traditional sketchbook thing, the first two sketchbooks I've used are sitting in my box o' art supplies, not even halfway used, because they're big, cumbersome and their pages are crappy and stiff. A word of advice...do not buy sketchbooks from Staples! Fast forward to 2010, I went on this shopping spree for sketchbooks! I've been wanting to use those sketchbooks and they're smaller than the sketchbooks that I tossed away. So I decide to lay one out on top of my scanner, thinking it's about the same size as a sheet of printer paper(which is around 8x11"). WRONG! My sketch books are 9x12" which is bigger than the scanning bed! I've tried looking for 9x12 scanners with no luck so far, and I really don't want to chuck out these sketchbooks...any ideas? Either I use these or bust out my sheets of cardstock and sketch on those, but I wanted to save the cardstock for something.
o5. I want to make a comic! Hence me saving my cardstock!
o6. Finish my website update!
o7. Maybe actually draw anthro art and post it on furaffinity...?
Entertainment.
Finish my backlog of ps2/ps3 games! And also I've going to dive into the world of steam games.
Life.
o1. GO OUT MOAR AND BE SOCIAL DAMMIT! With that in mind zylice, YOU, ME, UMMM...How about some cake 8D?
o2. My mother thinks I need to smile more....perhaps she is right. Even charicatures of myself, do not smile, especially in relation to where I work!
o3. I want to join a gym or rejoin the gym I left...but I can't afford it! But I do have a couple barbells at home, I will get my epically flat tummy for summer!
o4. Get my driver's license! You know what? I want my own ride! I want a corvette! And I think, if I get a license, it might make a good bargaining chip in getting said corvette for a birthday and/or Christmas..."Mom, dad, I have my G2, I am an upwardly mobile, ambitious, young, caribbean Canadian, of mixed afro-asian decent...AH DOES NEED DEH CORVETTE LIKE YUH DOES NEED DEH WATER AN PLENTY, PLENTY FOOD! OH GOD NUH WHY YUH LAGHING?"(protip: my impression of native Trinidadian speakers does cause plenty laughs)
o5. Lastly, one thing I'd like to do, but hope it isn't seen as arrogant. I would be tickled pink if I could print, frame and hang some of my artwork. Over the years I've seen and heard of a few artists doing this and thought it was cool. Heck, my older sister ran off with asked for one of my prints...because it matched the colour scheme of a nephew's bedroom XP.
That's about it for me, what do you hope to accomplish this year or in the near future!
On the art front, I can see improvements were made in 2012. I'm not getting stuck with anatomy as much when it comes to sketching things. Actually, I find myself visiting anatomy reference sites more, putting in the extra time to make sure things look right and make more anatomical "sense". As a result, when it comes to the digital inking stage with Paint Tool Sai, I've found myself going back and fixing my sketches, and with traditional inking, I'll sit there with my electric eraser and look over stuff before I bring out my pens. Bottom line: Leah is more careful with her anatomy. As for colouring, I've learned a few new things thanks to artists streaming their work or me just experimenting with stuff and it's had good results...I think! So let's take a look at the end results of my efforts shall we?
Now some of these should look familiar to you guys. After all it's artwork for my, "Leah takes over Anime North" project! As of right now, I've finished the lineart for picture number 9 of 10and hope to get those fully coloured soon. I'm even going to work on these at the laptop if needed, despite not having coloured something from start to finish in years. I'm a desk girl, what can I say?
And now for the important part, my plans for 2012! I'm hesitant to say "resulutions" because some of these you can't exactly complete in a year!
My 2012 Plans!
Art.
o1.A little while ago, I had an epiphany...I want to make this art thing some kind of side career! Now this is something I've thought about for a very, very long time, but I've always thought you had to be one of those crazy talented, super young, insanely popular people on deviantArt/online to be taken seriously when you say, "I want an art career."..But with age, experience and being exposed to different art styles, I've learned otherwise. So with that in mind, outside of the usual anatomy improvement/style development/I need to get my name out there. I have one idea that I plan to put into action once picture number 9 is coloured or all of them are finished. An idea that could make me a little money while I'm at it, I'm sure you all can guess what it is. If not...it's taking commissions! But any other ideas or suggestions on this one are welcome!
o2. I'm going to make an effort to be a little more prolific this year, or at least produce enough new art to fill one of those "year in art" memes!
o3. Buy better art supplies! Livejournal, I have a confession to make...maybe because I'm a mostly digital artist, and can make things "prettier" in photoshop, but I own some really crappy pencils, erasers and other stuff that I've been sketching with for a while. A good chunk of my time is spent darkening my sketches so that I can actually ink them and I know things would be a little easier if I worked with darker pencils but I'm a bad procrastinator who can't find the "time" to look for 2B mechanical pencils :D!. Luckily my birthday and payday are within days of each other, so as a gift to myself, I'm doing a little shopping on dickblick, jetpens and stationeryart.
o4. Break out of my habit of drawing on printer paper! Okay from the time I started making little doodles with my crayola markers as a little kid until now, I've mostly drawn on printer paper. I've tried doing the traditional sketchbook thing, the first two sketchbooks I've used are sitting in my box o' art supplies, not even halfway used, because they're big, cumbersome and their pages are crappy and stiff. A word of advice...do not buy sketchbooks from Staples! Fast forward to 2010, I went on this shopping spree for sketchbooks! I've been wanting to use those sketchbooks and they're smaller than the sketchbooks that I tossed away. So I decide to lay one out on top of my scanner, thinking it's about the same size as a sheet of printer paper(which is around 8x11"). WRONG! My sketch books are 9x12" which is bigger than the scanning bed! I've tried looking for 9x12 scanners with no luck so far, and I really don't want to chuck out these sketchbooks...any ideas? Either I use these or bust out my sheets of cardstock and sketch on those, but I wanted to save the cardstock for something.
o5. I want to make a comic! Hence me saving my cardstock!
o6. Finish my website update!
o7. Maybe actually draw anthro art and post it on furaffinity...?
Entertainment.
Finish my backlog of ps2/ps3 games! And also I've going to dive into the world of steam games.
Life.
o1. GO OUT MOAR AND BE SOCIAL DAMMIT! With that in mind zylice, YOU, ME, UMMM...How about some cake 8D?
o2. My mother thinks I need to smile more....perhaps she is right. Even charicatures of myself, do not smile, especially in relation to where I work!
o3. I want to join a gym or rejoin the gym I left...but I can't afford it! But I do have a couple barbells at home, I will get my epically flat tummy for summer!
o4. Get my driver's license! You know what? I want my own ride! I want a corvette! And I think, if I get a license, it might make a good bargaining chip in getting said corvette for a birthday and/or Christmas..."Mom, dad, I have my G2, I am an upwardly mobile, ambitious, young, caribbean Canadian, of mixed afro-asian decent...AH DOES NEED DEH CORVETTE LIKE YUH DOES NEED DEH WATER AN PLENTY, PLENTY FOOD! OH GOD NUH WHY YUH LAGHING?"(protip: my impression of native Trinidadian speakers does cause plenty laughs)
o5. Lastly, one thing I'd like to do, but hope it isn't seen as arrogant. I would be tickled pink if I could print, frame and hang some of my artwork. Over the years I've seen and heard of a few artists doing this and thought it was cool. Heck, my older sister ran off with asked for one of my prints...because it matched the colour scheme of a nephew's bedroom XP.
That's about it for me, what do you hope to accomplish this year or in the near future!