16 posts tagged “drawing”

What do you get when you mix a short sleeve polo shirt, thunderstorms and unstable air mass?  A freaking 20 minute hail-storm where yours-truly plays "save the eye-balls" with Senor AlphaOmega himself.

God

I won this round Mr. bearded almighty guy with cool robes. It'll take more than ice pellets thrown from the heavens to take me out. 

With that said, I will be devoting June to my Comic Ambitions.  Not the stand-up type but the cool kind of comic ambitions. (snap!).  I'll be drawing every day for the next 30 days starting June 1st.

So, mark your calendars.  June is Brandon Draws a Comic month.  30-days full of pencil and paper lovin'. The National Safety, Rose, Dairy and Rivers people can get a new month, June's officially mine now.  Want to test my ownership?  I'll grind up some roses in your milk and throw it all in a river while not wearing a life-jacket.  That's just how dedicated I am June, so stop yerbitchin.

Get ready for your eyes to get some dental work because June's going to be sweet as hell.

No?  Yeah, sorry about that. How about a sweet idea for a Halloween costume instead? Well...take three.

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Real short post tonight.  I realize I really screwed the couch as they say in certain corners of my imagination with this month's 30 day trial.  Mostly, a few things piled up this month along with me really sort of dooming myself by trying to add too much at the same time and I eventually just let it all go to the wayside. 

Next month, I'm going to refocus again but this time, I'm going to put it towards 30 days of drawing.  While April was 30 days of no-gaming that resulted in me picking up my beloved pencils again, June will be devoted to that cause which is something much more appealing and exciting to me than a 30 day workout regimen.  Maybe once I have my comic flushed out I can worry about making my workout plan golden but for now, the random runs with Nicole as she prepares for a Half-Marathon and the tri-weekly workouts I've been able to commit too will suffice just fine.  If nothing else, my burning out on working out too much did get me addicted to the actual act of it.  Went and worked out tonight and made my upper-body feel like rubber which means its working.

So, more tomorrow when I've better collected my thoughts on what June has in store for me.

Aside from all that though, my Australian Connection has reserved his flights to the Americas and will be testing the local bars infrastructures here in Denver this summer.  I've decided I'll totally be getting him a leather cowboy hat, 2 or 3 stuffed alligators and 10' bowie knife so that he feels authentically Australian while he's here, as I'm sure everyone will ask him if he's seen the movie Crocodile Dundee and I'd love if we can try and convince people it was an actual documentary.

As well, my bud Lee qualified for Tae-Kwon-do Nationals it seems, so that's freaking sweet.  All those times he accidentally split wood beams with his forehead finally paid off it looks like. He can splinter trees with a single thought it's foretold.  A single thought.

So, I love food.  Really, love it.  Sometimes, I dress myself up as a Chef just so I can feel closer to food.  My doctor says it's completely normal though.  Isn't that right Dr. Snuggles?

Long story short, we had a lengthy meeting today at work, so lengthy, lunch was purchased for us which is always cool.  We ate some fine Chinese cuisine, mine strewn with sesame and chicken.   All seemed ok.  That is, until it hit me.  Yeah, that it.

So, went home a little early today and feel much better now.    Safe to say though, there was no physical activity present that could be slated as exercise other than my standard walks to work.  I feel that this is understandable and excusable given my circumstances of digestion woes experienced this afternoon.

Aside from not being able to really sort my feelings on my friend's murderer being caught and the resurfacing of that painful memory, I've been a little burdened with family matters lately to be honest, which has kept me from my tasks regrettably.  The 5ish-day hiatus was mostly due to things just finally getting the best of me really.  My Dad is still out of a job and it's leaving my parents in a tight spot.  Several factors play into the whole matter, most of which deal with poor health of my parents that deter them from doing physical work even to the degree of standing for hours that makes their hunt for gainful employment difficult.  At any rate, it's got me pretty stressed for the most part.  My dad's a fine, fine Salesmen and it worries me that he won't find a job that can pay the bare minimum that my mother and him have set for just getting by.  I've as well been sending what spare cash I have and am starting to stress out from that as well knowing that I'm in no shape to fully help their financial perils.  At any rate, wish I had some connections or something where I could get my dad some great sales job and be done with this black cloud above my family and I for the past nine months. 

I'm quickly running out of optimism when my father calls me daily for advice and a pick-me-up.  Hard part for some to understand is that given my life, is that my parents have just me and my sister for support.  There's no grand circle of friends for them to call on nor can they rely on their relatives for a multitude of reasons.  So, when the worst comes knocking on their door, the call for help falls usually with me as they've really got no one else to fall back on. It's incredibly hard to watch your parents face something like possibly losing their home and health care knowing your best attempts to help haven't been able to slow it, let alone stop it.   Not an easy task to put the fate of your parents to chance and hope that it all just turns out ok while you try desperately to think about what they're going through facing their mid-60's without a penny saved, failing health and bills they can't pay.  It used to matter how they got there but right now, bringing up their mistakes serves little more than rubbing salt in their wounds.  All the while, I know that we all must face our own obstacles and demons and my parents, theirs but that's something much easier said when you're not front-row to the spectacle. 

I guess all in all, I just needed to write that all down as I like to internalize things a lot and putting it down here helps lift some of the weight that's been heavy on my shoulders recently.  I've been a therapist in one way or another for my parents since I was old enough to understand why they'd argue and I'm just ready for them to find some happiness and peace in their lives.  If I could get one wish, it'd be that their last years on this earth could be spent worrying more about getting rid of their sock-line tans than if they can sneak one more late month in on an already late mortgage so they can afford their diabetes medications.

At any rate,  just needed to vent via blog. 

Activities

I did get my draw on again and am quite pleased as a matter of fact.   Got my draw on real good.  Feel the sheer power, of the Gnome.

Gnome

Does that rhyme?

Well, yesterday was a bit of a long day to be honest, so I completely forgot to even make a post until right before I was going to go to bed, which just doesn't work for me.  Saturday started with a 7am house-call by Comcast, or as they're referred to in this house, El Diablo.  It seems that as I previously commented, the actual company that provides cable has no real idea on how to manage it.  Yeah, I too thought this would work hand and hand as they're the guardian of all things cable but when it comes to say, turning said cable on or off it seems they never really read that part of the manual.  Lest to say, our 7am Saturday was not exactly what we're used too.  I've always just assumed Saturday's have a 7:00am just like every other day, it's rare that I've actually experienced it first-hand. 

From there, we got ready for a trip to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to meet Sara and her esteemed Joshua for a morning of learning.  Safe to say, we all realized that these museums cater to the young, it's flashing lights low to the ground, it's buttons large and immune to the most intense smashing and even the most dull facts blinking against the wall in full neon splendor.  I won't lie, we were somewhat put off that there weren't adult lines for such things as the radio controlled Dock You Space Ship game.  Try as we could, the children always managed to get to the buttons first.  The little monsters, their lessons at sharing fully forgotten.  Well, jokes on them that they actually learned something.  I bet that kept a good deal of them up after getting home, realizing in horror they actually remember that Ben Franklin helped institute the Postal Service as they were quickly pushing buttons marked with neon-colored stamps. 

As well, it marked my first time in a Planetarium since perhaps my younger years.  We learned all about Black Holes and  I tell you what, Liam Neeson could narrate the Home Shopping Network and I would sit, engrossed, with credit card in hand as if God himself had shown me the necessity of a new set of steak knives.  A very good time was had by all yet about the time we had all left Wahoo's Fish Taco's I started feeling quite ill. 

I'm known to get migraines from the most random triggers, perhaps now I can add Steak and Rice to that list.  I'm not sure really.  All I know was that my head hurt from about 2pm until we went to bed and it kept up, getting even worse as the night wore on.  Regrettably, due to it, I didn't feel up to our second plan of the day, which was heading out to hang with some of my new co-workers at a local Bar.  As well, it kept me from my daily workout theme, making me feel quite lazy for the rest of Saturday Night.  And as well, it marked my first day loading up a game, I decided to enjoy a bit of simulated flying.  Had a good time of it actually and felt like it was earned instead of expected.  Not too shabby.

However, today I worked out almost an hour and fifteen minutes to make up for it and I can say I feel completely exhausted.  I do think though I'm coming down with something though, both Nicole and I feel under the weather for sure.  Hoping it clears up by the morning.

Activities

Worked out for an hour or so this weekend, making my arms feel even more like jello.  Learning the hard way that this 30-days in a row thing is making it hard since getting to the gym, every part of me hurts in some fashion which forces me to switch up what I do each day.  However, I'm 100% positive that by May 30th, I'll be making my t-shirts explode by merely stretching as my muscles will be that deadly by then.

Set down tonight to draw up some character ideas based on my new concept for my comic and came up with a rough drawing of this guy.  He's a little more dirty sketched than most as I didn't really erase the guidelines as much this one so keep that in mind.  Trying to get him to look "strong" which I've learned is more than just making exaggerated muscles.  His jaw and head are actually cut with sharp angles to represent power, or so I'm told by my guides.

Ugly Stick

Crazy how even taking a day or two off from drawing makes it slower to start.  Proves to me that I need to make it a daily thing so I'm not constantly starting 2 steps back every time I grab my drawing gear. 

Quick Facts

• Weight: 249
• Diet: Cereal, Steak and Rice bowl, 1 mountain dew, OJ, 1 glass of water, grilled cheese, breakfast burrito, 4 cinnamon rolls (ack), cookie, coffee, 3 glasses of water, chicken-ranch footlong sub.
• I need to drink more water definitely and eat less cinnamon rolls.
  

Yeah, so reaching above my head is now a feat of incredible concentration.  Doing so makes me feel as though I've harnessed super-powers or something equally impressive.  Honestly, all this working out is now hindering my hygiene, if not my ability to participate in the wave.

Went and saw Spiderman 3 today and honestly, I liked it.  Now, I didn't love it as I did with the first two but come on, it's the third in a series.  How many of those have ever been great?  Honestly, the difference between like and love was mostly due to what seemed a somewhat scattered plot really.  Don't get me wrong, the plot was there but it just didn't feel realistic.  Granted, realistic in a ok, I can buy there's a kid with super-powers garnered from a radioactive spider-bite, a guy made of sand, a gooey alien and a guy riding a hover-snowboard but do they really expect me to buy everything?  Won't spoil anything but this iteration had a certain level of broken-immersion that really hampered the movie.  Several times did I find myself ripped from the story by some awkwardly placed cameo or scene that didn't fit at all.  It's natural though, after your movie has garnered record-breaking box-offices twice in a row, I'm sure there's a fair amount of "I could film a brick wall for 2 hours and still make a boat-load of cash as long as it said Spiderman in the title" going on in the background.  I will say, it's worth seeing only to see some of the incredible fight scenes but as far as the story and character growth that ruled the first two, it's just not there this time.

Activities

• I went and worked out for 40 minutes, working on arms primarily. Tell you what, it's getting easier as I found myself worried I was waiting too long to go the gym.  That's something that doesn't happen to me.  After a good talk to my bud Bill about routines, I got myself a little more rigid as far as doing something planned when I get to the gym across the street.  While my arms hurt and I can barely type without feeling tired, there's a good feeling as well there making me feel like I'm getting healthier by the day.  I can totally see how people get addicted to this whole exercise thing.
• As well, 34 days without touching a game.  How about that?
• I spent some time reading up on how to convert drawings to digital through Photoshop reading some tricks/tips from Penny-Arcade and a few other comics I like reading.   Lot of interesting ideas there as far laying out your strips before scanning them in.  As well, making clip art yourself to reuse in comics so that it's more of using parts for certain scenes than having to redraw each scene.  Lot of interesting stuff.
  

• Weight: 250 (dammit, this better be muscle I'm gaining)
• Diet: Cherry Turnover, Popcorn, Cherry Coke, cereal, milk, 3 glasses water, 1 glass Apple Juice.
• Wow, I really didn't eat anything good today.  I barely ate at all.
  

Little known fact.  99% of stores only carry clothing to fit gentlemen 6'4" and shorter.  Well known fact.  I hate clothes shopping.  The 1% of stores that carry actual large sizes of clothes consist either of athletic stores full of sweatpants and tear-away pants, Big & Tall stores that cater to lumberjacks or those that prefer plaid and carpenter boots or specialty stores like the Men's Warehourse, Buckle and Banana Republic.  Since I don't enjoy wearing pants that require a draw-string or shirts that double as picnic blankets, I'm forced to shop at the latter.  While, I'm of course thankful that there are at least three stores that sell fashionable pants that fit, I'm known to have fits over the fact I'm required to pay premiums for said clothing unless I want to look like I'm eternally prepared for flood waters.

Keeping that in mind, I've become infamous for wearing jeans out in order to get my money out of them to such a point as to where they simply explode from exhaustion into a storm of denim confetti.  Today, I realized with my new casual dress code where I work, my having only one pair of jeans was somewhat risky.  What if I was to be left without pants due to an unforeseen event where my jean was damaged beyond repair?  Wearing dress pants, when everyone else is wearing jeans, makes rumors spread you're actually going on an interview over lunch and I don't need that sort of gossip spreading simply because I break out my fine pleated-wear.  In defeat, I went to the Buckle today and purchased three pairs of jeans, meaning I will not need to buy another pair until my 40th birthday if current records stay unbroken.  Hallelujah, I've got extra pants that in total were more expensive than my television.  There's some guy out there at Buckle HQ, dressed only in stonewash, making a denim statue in my likeness right now I'm positive.

In celebration, Nicole and I went to a local swanky restaurant we've walked by dozens of times and ate lamb and carrot cake as rich people do for on a daily basis and it was glorious.  Other than dining out and pants shopping, I hit the pencil hard today, really working at my face-drawing and feel like I hit a milestone of sorts.

Activities

I really got inspired with how crazy-nice the weather was today and sat outside a while with my dog and practiced drawing faces.  This has always been one of my weaker spots, aside from hands and posing (which I feel like I'll be a lot better at with all the practicing I've done with poses).  I was pretty amazed that after a good deal of eraser used, I started to remember all the reading I had done in the past 3 weeks about how to make a face look convincing.  Here's the first face I drew this morning, I was trying to draw a likeness of myself really, sort of eerie how it came out pretty close.  My eyes are really that big:

Self portrait

Now, most of these were based on characters I've wanted to make in the past.  I had a revelation tonight on an idea for my comic, one that I'll hold back sharing just yet until it's fleshed out better and I'm positive that it's a good idea when I'm a little more awake. As far as the characters, I wanted to practice different looks with different personalities based on their faces.  As I worked on that, I wanted to start trying to remake a few of my old drawings to see what a new look would be like.  The ninja is a retry at one I made a long time ago based on a character Lee and I thought up a few years back:

Ninja Hut

Either way, I feel like these face-drawings were a big leap in my abilities.  They're definitely happening faster now and I can tell that a lot of what I've been reading is starting to apply itself.  They're not perfect yet, or at least, not perfect in my mind but they're really getting close, especially the ninja face.  I'm really happy with that one, as he was the last one I drew before scanning them in.  Think that I might be on par to at least get some characters fleshed out tomorrow so that I'm ready to start practicing them in different poses, which is indeed the hardest part of all I've found.

Quick Facts
Weight: 246.50
Diet: Hot Cereal and chocolate chips, apple with caramel dip, banana, turkey&cranberry sandwich, broasted lamb, mash potatoes, carrots/broccoli/zucchini, 1 beer, 2 glasses of water, 2 glasses of OJ, 1 glass of milk.

Well, for whatever reason, there was a small gap in posts so I thought I'd just combine Thursday and Friday into one.  Seems I've ran into a small snag in my original plan of sorts.  While, I'm not one to shy away from absolute optimism, there's a degree of my mission I set out to do that I hadn't really considered.  While, without question, I've marked considerable progress  in a good deal of areas, such as:

• I've not played a single video game since March 31st.  I've not had one single moment where I almost loaded up my PS2, not a inkling of desire to resubscribe my World of Warcraft account, I've not even enjoyed a simple game of Solitaire.   Truth is, I've figured out that the gaming wasn't an addiction, but instead, something to fill my time.  It made me lazy and unambitious because it was an easy mindfall.  Similar to TV, it was an easy fix to spend my time versus the work involved in trying to create something. 
  
• We did away with our Premium Cable channels and returned our DVR.  It would seem, I as well learned that a DVR is just as damaging as any video game had been to using my free-time with efficiency.  Without a DVR, if you miss your show, it's easier to just release that and go about your other tasks.  With our DVR, there was always something to watch and that was as damning to my ability to focus on less simple tasks as anything.
• I've become self-aware of my health again and have started working to correct some of my poor eating habits.
• I've been able to wake up feeling accomplished instead of paranoid that I'm wasting my free-time, and essentially, my life by making sure I have a goal to shoot for that provides a tangible reward.
  
• I've reinvigorated my desire to create.  I've began drawing again, on a regular basis.  I've built up a small drawing guide library and from what I can tell, have vastly improved my abilities just in a short time.  I'm not Stan Lee by any means but that's never been the goal.  If I hadn't done this, I'd still be the guy talking about being better at drawing.  That's the lesson right there.

All in all, it's been more an experiment regarding the power of decisions and habits.  It would have been far easier to just sit back and continue my pattern prior to April.  Simply just keep to my routine and complain that nothing was changing.  As they say, you can't expect change if all you do is repeat the same steps over and over.  It takes that initial step out of your comfort area to create change and I think that's the lesson I had to reteach myself. 

I've got a weekend to work on my comic idea and start fleshing out characters.  What I find really refreshing is that despite the fact everything hasn't gone as well as I'd laid out Day One, I'm 27 days closer to making a comic than I've ever been and that, right there, is a success already.  I've reminded myself that I'm able to focus and commit to something despite my basic instincts.  Defeating your bad habits in under a month and replacing them with productive good habits is an incredibly fulfilling feeling and if anything at all, I've improved myself immensely in the last few weeks. 

Can't complain about that.

Activities:

Really, really, reallllly worked on faces because, well, thats where I'm weak right now.  Here's a sample of what I'm trying to do.  You can see, I'm really trying to focus on just plain face structure.  I have a habit of drawing flat and lifeless faces and I really want to improve that because I want my drawings to inspire energy in every line, which, is crazy difficult.  I can't tell you how difficult of a time I'm having with faces.  It's something that I'm going to be good at if I have to wear out every damn eraser and pencil in a tri-state area.

Face_up

Quick Facts (2 days)

Decided today that while working on my wireframe skills has been extremely helpful, I'm not exactly in line to believe that making a comic purely based on wireframe's will be all that exhilarating, well, that is, unless I give them witty dialog.  Hmm...

Figure that with nearly 4 days left in my experiment, I've mostly got this weekend to really bring everything together.   It also begs the question of what now.  What about when these 30 days are up?  To be honest, I feel like I've broke a chain around my ankle and that this nightly confession to the deacons of the interweb has been more than simply a practice in discipline, it's been almost systematic.  Why stop at 30?  What about the next month?  Am I truly accomplished if I just make progress for 30 months and then give myself an excuse to go back to my old ways?  There's the question right there. What have I accomplished if I simply stop come May 1st?  Progress without dedication is merely a demonstration of what is possible and I believe, for someone that's lived a nomadic life as I have, I have had my fill with demonstrations.

It also begs the question, how the hell do I make something like this?

R2FU

I mean, let it be known, my father and I once were masters of the radio controlled device.  Most don't know my old love of the Radio Controlled Vehicle.  To those that share this love, I still own an aluminum chassis RC-10.  Yeah, feast on that R/C enthusiasts.  It drowns in old-school authenticity.

Mini-Vroom

I figure if I know how to make something like that from a pile of loose parts, I could do the same with a Trash can and some stickers like Captain Radio did up there.  Might be a fun project some day to make myself a personal beer and laundry droid.  Might even be more fun to give him a Scottish-accent and a hankering for Grey Goose Vodka.  Hmmm.....

Oh, hey, my partner in literary crime Lee made his own blog.  He said I inspired him.  How thoughtful.  He must want something as he's diabolical like that.  Seriously, he's military.  If I learned anything from my years in hippie-occupied Colorado, it's that the military wants to interrogate Puppies and that just yells diabolical.

Activities

Worked pretty late today and didn't get home until almost 7:30, so I barely ate the delicious burrito that my lovely Nicole made, let alone remembered that without our precious DVR, I actually had to watch LOST.  Wow, how lazy is America that having to watch a TV show when it airs is considered annoying. Good thing tonights episode was insanely boring or the commercials I was forced to ignore would have made me even more agitated.

I did manage to scan in the images I drew over the weekend, which made me think that it's time to really dig deep on detailing out some characters and going back to some of the dozens of wireframes I've made and fleshing them out. 

Day 18 of not playing a single video game, two-and-a-half weeks without a wasted night of wishing I was doing something with my free-time, eighteen days of posting on this blog consecutively, eighteen days of a new career, eighteen days of scrutinizing what I do, what I eat, what I feel and not a single night have I broken my oath.  The anxiety I once thought only cured by the zombie drone of a video-game is now refocused and re-purposed.  Instead of pacifying it, I've embraced it, realized that both my strength and weakness is my deficit of attention and only when I set a goal and keep track of my progress, does it seem to be harnessed.  Oddly enough, it would explain why games had the same effect.  They provide goals and track progress, making you feel like you've accomplished something, even if it's virtual.  For what ailed me, that was enough but now, now I know what I had been doing wrong.  That it wasn't some ill-effect of poor genetics, lack of proper medication or a character flaw.  It was that I had been so embarrassed a characteristic I've had since my childhood that I didn't dig deep enough to see that the answer in how to make it a strength was right there.  It's no secret that I've always been somewhat self-conscious of my attracting to games of all shapes and types, especially the farther from my teens I progressed and for good reason.  It's not exactly a noble profession in the eyes of the various social hierarchies.  It carries an unfair stigma with it that we all have heard in the media whenever something like Virginia Tech happens.  But, despite all that, I regret I let that embarrassment deny something telling that gaming provided me.  With purpose and tracked progression, no matter how virtual or real, my at times wild focus becomes engaged and driven. 

Applying the same principles to this experiment so far has harnessed that resurfaced a strength I forgot I had handled before.  It's how I became skilled at acting, jumping cars with a BMX bike, fiction, poetry, design, and so many other things I've taught myself through the years.  Troubling how quickly I toss away the fact I've done a lot well instead of doing one thing great as a weakness.  If anything, it's carried me to where I am and it did so because I had brief moments of realization of how to tame my inner cyclone.  Twenty-nine years and I've finally learned how I work.  Not so bad I guess.  Now, what I need to focus on now is that while I've marked eighteen days, it means that only twelve remain.   Time to put the elbow to the coldstone or whatever the saying is.  I've got goals to meet yo.

Activities

• Watched Lost with the lady and was very happy to be on the edge of my seat, confused and wanting this to be a daily show instead of a weekly one.  Still a die-heard fan, especially as I've read just about every word on lost-pedia.(spoilers)
  
  
• Regarding current events, I came across a fine article that urges caution in jumping to conclusions and hasty solutions.  What a wise thought theory that is.  Due to some personal interest in gaming over the years, tragedies like these hit a little close to home on certain fronts as since Columbine, people like me have been associated with such murderous events simply because we favor Italian plumbers and stacking blocks neatly.  So, reading this quote from the aforementioned article was especially refreshing to finally see placed on a credible news-source.
  
  
  "We will hear "experts" on cable news shows blame video games for the rise in gun violence among young people - despite the fact that the rise in popularity of violent video games coincides with a remarkable drop in gun violence in all sectors of American society."
  
  
• 

  Comics Crash Course

  I dug out an old book I bought a long time ago and went to work reading up on everything perspective-based drawing.  Quite the quality book actually but when I originally bought it, I was still drawing circles with my tongue stuck out.  So, yea, it was a little high-level but now that I'm a self-proclaimed expert, it's a little less painful to decipher.  It's a good book that is maybe a bit brief in the explanation department but more than makes up for it in quality examples of what not to do.  Always happy to see what I'm doing wrong in a book I payed $20 for.  Go figure, I was already famous.
  
  
• I as well found a cool little video on Youtube showing a different approach to drawing characters than most of the books I've been reading.  More of a sphere-based modeling.  I've been putting a lot of focus towards more realistic, comic-book-style drawings but to be honest, there's something to be said about cartoon-style drawings.  You forget the exaggerated dimensions and there's a lot of story in just making things a bit out of proportion.
  

Quick Facts

• Weight: 245.50
• Diet: I'm doing better  but not perfect yet.
  
• (2) Bagels, (2) glasses OJ, 1 glass water (despite my friend Snellopy's better advice of 4 or more), 1 Cafe-mocha, .5 of a cookie, Chicken Stir-fry, banana, 2 glasses of Cranraspberry juice.
  

Realized a fun option on this Vox thing today.  If you've got books you'd like to talk about, say drawing books, you can start a collection of them on here and it links with Amazon so you can get some descriptions of them, related books, etc  Pretty fun little tool considering we've got a good amount of books strewn about our little one bedroom apartment. As well, I spent a fair amount reading one of my drawing guides today, which provides one hell of a segue.

Activities

Today was a relaxing day for the most part.  I hit up Target and picked up a good deal of groceries to last the gang here for hopefully, a few weeks.  Aside from that, the day was a relaxing day for the most part.

• 

  Drawing Cutting Edge Anatomy
  Read a lot on drawing Anatomy, namely, on how to give definition to characters instead of just using straight lines.  For the most part, the comic I have in mind will be less on detail and more on expression but most of the books/guides I've read say that you can always work backwards and very rarely, after you create your own style, it's very hard to increase it's complexity.  So, start out with the details and work backwards is my theory.  Not any drawing done today but a lot of studying I like to think.
  
  What amazes me is that amount of knowledge you need to have regarding the human body just to be able to create characters.  So, in a way, I'm learning a lot about a myriad of different subjects. 
  
  
  
• As well as books, I've been finding Youtube to be a really good resource as well, as there's a good amount of video tutorials on the subject.  Even better, tonight I found a series on Jim Lee (best known for his art on Batman) and Stan Lee  (the man  behind Spiderman)  who give a tutorial.  The one I took the most from was one showing Jim Lee effortlessly drawing a rough draft.
  
  
  Jim Lee/Stan Lee 'Comic Book Greats' pt 4

• As well as research, Nicole, Koda and I went running, again.  I can't tell you how much I hate running, as I've tried to tell everyone from day 1.  But, I will admit, it's getting easier with just going the last 3 or 4 times.  Plus, I forgot how good you feel after you workout.  Thank god for my girl or I'd have no running shoes at all.

Quick Facts

• Weight: 246.00
• Diet:
  
• Bacon, Hashbrowns, 3 glasses of OJ, 1 glass of water, 1 orange, 1 banana, 1 brownie, 1 cinnamon roll, handful of pistachios (god I love pistachios)
  
• Wow, we only at one full meal today. That's never good.