Switching Gears for the New Year
Ha, I was working so much I didn't even realize what year it was. Two weeks off from work and it's like I fall into an artistic abyss. Well I'm back and here's what I brought with me:
Art
I’m in art crunch mode at the moment in an attempt to raise my drawing skills up a few notches. I’ve been focusing on drawing a variety of characters with different: Facial Proportions, Age, Weights, and Stylizations. I’m also starting to study anatomy in more detail than I have before. You can see some of my sketch work here:
Things are going good so far. I can see the difference in my work only a month after starting the study. I’m going to continue this drive well into the new year as I want to be capable of doing publishable work by next year.
Manga
On the manga front, I’ve been working with my friend Bryce on a bunch of random short story ideas that we have developed into one-shot mangas (each between 2 and 10 pages at the moment). Since neither one of us actually has the time to pen and ink these manga ourselves, we just focus on the planning ( write the script, draw the storyboards, shot compositions, and panel layouts) and then hand the stories off to more talented artists to draw.
Currently, we are doing this “for fun” just to get more experience developing manga shorts and working as “directors” with other artists. So far we’ve finished 1 project and have 2 more coming down the pipe.
Here are some recent pencil sketches I did for one project we’re working on now (pardon the quality, my scanner sucks at picking up pencils:
Also, here’s the first finished 2-pager we worked on in November. The story and direction was done by Bryce and myself. The art was done by Cassandra Jean:
The main character: A homeless assassin
Your typical corrupt CEO
Your typical corrupt cop.
So as you can see, even when I don’t have time to do manga myself, that doesn’t seem to stop me from producing new works ;)
Music
I’ve been deep into Music Theory and History lately and my knowledge of how music works (especially Harmony and how many of my favorite songs are constructed) has risen quite a bit. The theory is deep though and it seems like it will take me a while to fully grasp it all. This year I’ll just be pushing through all those music drills and exercises until the theory becomes second nature.
Life
I have no idea what to do so I just randomly place chips on the table until I win more than I had, then I stop playing :)
Radical Transformed
Something called Doria. All I know is that it has rice, cheese, tomato sauce, and multiple layers of “ohh so good”!
Butternut Squash Ravioli
This is the “BEST” Salmon pasta-stuff I’ve ever tasted (heck, it’s the nest best pasta dish I’ve ever had- PERIOD!).
It's a piece of cake to bake a piece of cake...
2008 Resolution Review
Well since I totally missed this opportunity 2 days ago, I guess I should take the time to do it now. Here’s a look at how I did last year based on the goals and resolutions I set:
2009 Resolutions
Great, so now that all that stuff is over I can leave 2008 behind. It was a great year, perhaps the most productive yet. Here are my goals and resolutions for this next cycle:
IPD MAP
Here are my IPD maps for the months of November and December:
Until next month, Love and Peace!!
-~-
Art
I’m in art crunch mode at the moment in an attempt to raise my drawing skills up a few notches. I’ve been focusing on drawing a variety of characters with different: Facial Proportions, Age, Weights, and Stylizations. I’m also starting to study anatomy in more detail than I have before. You can see some of my sketch work here:
Things are going good so far. I can see the difference in my work only a month after starting the study. I’m going to continue this drive well into the new year as I want to be capable of doing publishable work by next year.
Manga
On the manga front, I’ve been working with my friend Bryce on a bunch of random short story ideas that we have developed into one-shot mangas (each between 2 and 10 pages at the moment). Since neither one of us actually has the time to pen and ink these manga ourselves, we just focus on the planning ( write the script, draw the storyboards, shot compositions, and panel layouts) and then hand the stories off to more talented artists to draw.
Currently, we are doing this “for fun” just to get more experience developing manga shorts and working as “directors” with other artists. So far we’ve finished 1 project and have 2 more coming down the pipe.
Here are some recent pencil sketches I did for one project we’re working on now (pardon the quality, my scanner sucks at picking up pencils:
Also, here’s the first finished 2-pager we worked on in November. The story and direction was done by Bryce and myself. The art was done by Cassandra Jean:
The main character: A homeless assassin
Your typical corrupt CEO
Your typical corrupt cop.
So as you can see, even when I don’t have time to do manga myself, that doesn’t seem to stop me from producing new works ;)
Music
I’ve been deep into Music Theory and History lately and my knowledge of how music works (especially Harmony and how many of my favorite songs are constructed) has risen quite a bit. The theory is deep though and it seems like it will take me a while to fully grasp it all. This year I’ll just be pushing through all those music drills and exercises until the theory becomes second nature.
Life
- Work: As fun and as stressful as ever. I really hope this year isn’t a series of death marches. Here are some picts from the Radical Christmas Party where they transformed a part of the studio into a Casino for a night:
I have no idea what to do so I just randomly place chips on the table until I win more than I had, then I stop playing :)
Radical Transformed
- Food: More of Hiromi’s creations:
Something called Doria. All I know is that it has rice, cheese, tomato sauce, and multiple layers of “ohh so good”!
Butternut Squash Ravioli
This is the “BEST” Salmon pasta-stuff I’ve ever tasted (heck, it’s the nest best pasta dish I’ve ever had- PERIOD!).
It's a piece of cake to bake a piece of cake...
2008 Resolution Review
Well since I totally missed this opportunity 2 days ago, I guess I should take the time to do it now. Here’s a look at how I did last year based on the goals and resolutions I set:
- Finish at least 3 original short story manga.
- Win!: Yep, if I count the manga I passed off to other artist to finish then this goal has been met .
- Develop my music composition skills to the point where I can breakdown and understand all of the great songs that I have taken the time to learn.
- Win!: You know, I haven’t had time to breakdown the songs I was talking about, but I certainly can understand them at a rudimentary level now. I can see their structure and understand some of the techniques used in their creation. The next step is to expand on this insight and start using some of the techniques in my own works.
- Revise and record 3 of my old songs using the new composition principles I've learned.
- Win!: Yep: Opus number 6, 7, and 8 from my original compositions are all based on some of my older songs.
- Design Version 3 of my Website: Kulimar.com
.
- Win!: I have indeed “Designed” it, but as I have had no time of my own to implement it, I’ve hired a very talented web developer to work with me in putting it together. This will be the first time I’ve outsourced the implementation of my personal website. I look forward to seeing the results.
- Study for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 3 ( Requirements: 1500 Vocabulary and 300 Kanji).
- Epic Fail!! With everything else on the go, my Japanese studies have taken a backseat. I’ll put this down on the list again for this year (although by now I might have to go back to level 4 as I’m constantly forgetting stuff T_T)
- Start on the first arc of my long form manga, "Seda: Thief of Nothing".
- Epic Fail!!: Hahahaha NO!! I won’t be working on Thief of Nothing or any other Seda Epic until I’ve satisfactorily dealt with all the small stories I currently have in my project folder.
- Buy at least 6 Units of Time this year.
- Disqualified: I’m done with the whole units of time thing. I’ll just be saving money, period.
- If there is sufficient time and money, GO TO JAPAN!
- Minor Fail: Well there wasn’t…But Hiromi came back from Japan, so that’s basically like having Japan come to me instead :p
- Pay off my Computer (haha, for real this time).
- Win!: Yes!! And I did too!!
- At least get all of the information and details I need in order to establish credit in Canada
- Win!: Even better, I got that freaking credit card and after using it all year I paid it off and haven’t touched it since :p
- Focus most of my research and studies on History, Philosophy, and Psychology.
- Draw: Half and Half: I did do a big history crunch and learned all about the ancient world up to modern Europe. I didn’t get around to Philosophy and Psychology as much and I don’t see it on the agenda for this year really. I’ve got to focus more on my art and story writing skills now.
- U nexpected Bonus Goals I Accomplished:
- Taught Manga at a school to kids!
- Started a Manga meet-up Group (18 meeting and 5-star ratings so far)
- Studied Film Directing, Story Writing, and Manga Creation intensely (as a result of starting the meet-up group.)
- Got 2 raises and 1 promotion at work (yes, yes, I know :)
- Ate some of the most delicious food that I’ve ever tasted (My regards to the up and coming chef in my kitchen, she’s a marvel really…)
- Got major studio upgrades. I’m basically fully stocked and can just focus on working now.
2009 Resolutions
Great, so now that all that stuff is over I can leave 2008 behind. It was a great year, perhaps the most productive yet. Here are my goals and resolutions for this next cycle:
- Finish my Short Story manga “Panacea”: I’m going for quality over quantity this year. If I only get one 24-36 page manga done, I’ll be happy.
- Revise and finalize all short story manga scripts currently in the queue (I believe there are about 6 now).
- Develop the IP foundation for at least one of my 1-to-5-volume Manga stories (This is what I will shoot for after finishing off all smaller projects.)
- Significantly improve in art: I’ve never been as serious or as pumped as I am now about improving in my fundamental art skills. My goal is to have publishable artwork by next year.
- Launch Kulimar Version 3: The Opus Era: Everything is on track for this to happen.
- Take care of the rest of my dental work: After last year I’m down to the final two wisdom teeth and then it’s all braces and teeth straightening from there.
- Compose at least 5 new songs: This should be pretty easy, but again, I’m going to focus on quality over quantity. I’ll keep iterating on the same songs in order to make them better and better.
- Buy a Cintiq: It must be done. It’s the only way I can stand to color on the computer ever again (my job has spoiled me rotten with theirs).
- Get another raise / promotion (Hey, might as well if I'm going to buy that Cintiq)
IPD MAP
Here are my IPD maps for the months of November and December:
Until next month, Love and Peace!!
-~-