These are my Friends.

This happens on a very frequent basis. And when it's not relocating me because I'm conveniently situated on wheels, it's chasing me down the hallway screaming "I'M GONNA KILL YOU" because I threw a pencil at them.

Aw yeah.

Also, bad moods are contagious.

I like these little comics. They're a very fun way to get ideas down and out.

Annie

12:16

Let's Try Some Red Today

I've just been drawing depressing looking things lately.

Picked up a sketchbook from my shelf last night and realized I'd never drawn in it. Today, all through English class and break, all I did was doodle.

This was one I'd had an idea for a long time ago, but I'd never finished; so today I drew it, inked it, and painted it.

I'm taking a break from varied lines, because apparently I'm an idiot and don't understand how line weights are supposed to work.

Having a style crisis again; mostly because I feel compared to people I care about, and I really, really wish that wouldn't happen. As much as I have an impossible time figuring out what my art looks like, I still feel like I'm suffering from doppelganger syndrome. That I can't create anything original, and even when I have an original idea, I can't pull off an actual original drawing.

Which is funny, because I'm finally in animation, and I feel like I' miles ahead of some students, but miles behind others. I'm finally in the place I want to be, yet I panic and worry and fret over what my art is actually looking like.

I'm trying to take a step back and try to realize that it's a step in the learning process, and my art is going to change, as it obviously will as I pick up influences and learn things and get better at art... But I'm sitting here and really feeling quite awful. I've closed my door because I'm upset and want to keep to myself (so I'll just tell the internet instead, HAHA!), and I want to say something to somebody who can tell me something to make me feel better, but I don't know who to talk to, what to say, or what I want to hear.

It hasn't even got anything to do with anyone but me. My frustrations at constantly getting the horrific mocking 'B', the steady feeling like water is slowly raising up around my ankles, knees, thighs, waist, the fact that I feel like I'm going to do terribly in the class I was most excited for, the fact that I know I'm going to do terribly in painting class despite my best efforts...

Guess I'm feeling pretty scared, haha. I never really got to the point of answering "Excited!" When someone asked me how I was feeling about animation, my answer was always "scared" and here I am, scared out of my mind that things are slowly slipping out of my control.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to try and finish up my layout assignment. It won't be too difficult, tracing, inking, an hour or two tops. After that, life drawing class, and when I get home, I'm going to study for my "Shot by shot" quiz on Friday. Friday night, when I come home, I'm going to start my flat gray scale painting, and hopefully, possibly, maybe, probably not, finish it before I go to bed that night. Then I have the long weekend to finish the other two. Tuesday I have a book in perspective due for animation (let's hope I don't animate any pages doing nose dives), another character design class to just draw poses, seeing as they aren't due till week eight, I once again have no homework for Wednesday, but my three paintings are due that day, I have no idea what's up next Friday, and next weekend I'm going to spend the weekend drawing hands and feet, which are due week seven.

See? It doesn't seem all that bad once you plan it out, now does it?

I'm still very scared.

It's one in the morning; I think I might go to bed now.

Annie

12:51

Winding Down

Yup, it's that time of year again. The time of year that involves a lot of "Holy crap, that's due THIS week?! How am I going to finish everything in time?!"

In other words, it's the end of the year.

I'm taking a break from watching Sherlock Holmes for the fourth or fifth time to post a couple drawings I made earlier today.

Today I didn't have anything to do; I woke up at seven to participate in a critique, and I hung around at school to show some sketches and prove to my teacher that I did actually do preemptive work for my InDesign portfolio project.

I was in a very rotten mood by the time I finally got let out of digital class, but I'm feeling much better now. Had something to eat, had some juice, and now I'm relaxing watching a movie.

To the drawings! The top drawing is again, a slightly older Suka, who I felt like drawing today. I'm not sure why. Below that, I figured after drawing a not so happy Suka picture, I should draw a happy one! Which led me to draw the younger version of Suka. I didn't like this one too much, I drew her eye too high in her face, and I messed up her lips-- but that's what happens when you draw in ballpoint! Ah, but it's so much fun. The bottom image is Tinette, of course, which I drew because Chelsea was drawing Tina in my sketchbook for me. I like this one, except the under drawing I changed makes her hand look like some sort of claw, instead of a hand.. but oh well.

Tomorrow, two more assignments, a little gallery on friday, and that's it, visual and creative arts is behind me forever! And I can start working. And then after work, I can start animation!

I am going to return to my movie now.

Annie

7:11

Annie-Mation

Today, I have nothing except this link.

Personal Portfolio made for Digital Media Class.

Which you should totally click on and follow around and comment because I spent hours on it and it's really nifty.

Before you decide to take a look, the contacts tab doesn't work. What it's supposed to do, is it's supposed to open up as a separate email window, that goes to my sheridan email. However, SWF files apparently don't support that feature.

That's all right though, because PDF files support that feature!

But PDF files don't support page transitions, and without them, my entire portfolio looks like crap.

I'll be asking my teacher about that, because everything I read says that PDF's can indeed support page transitions, and if I could just get that one aspect working, I wouldn't need a SWF file, I could use the PDF. It also means I could include bookmarks, which is good.

I also wanted my splash page to open with a quick slideshow, with a flashing of four separate images, each one of my characters, and then fading to the "Annie-Mation" window, with a blinking cursor beside it.

InDesign isn't capable of making slideshows, or supporting animated gifs.

It's like trying to paint with a toothpick, there's so much I want to do but the program just won't support it.

I was up until four in the morning working on this; and then my room mate texted me at eight thirty asking if she could borrow my jam. The weekend world doesn't exist before nine, please don't do that on a day when I don't have class.

Other than that, I've got my biggest concern for next week out of the way! Now all I have left is a 400 word report, 2 billboard designs and a drawing of Bernini's David with some muscles and bones.

Hooray! I think I'm going to eat some dinner.

Annie

6:47

A page full of annoying doodles.

Actually, spending four hours drawing my friends and classmates and my own hands was actually a hell of a lot of fun. I've always loved hands, and how amazingly expressive they can be.

Up until last year, I thought I was pretty good at drawing hands, but my portfolio score set me straight.

So here, I present the hands portion of my homework. Drawings of five hands and three feet. I won't be posting the feet.

Like I said, I've always loved hands, and they never cease to amaze me. They are severely taken for granted on a daily basis. My favourite hand is the one on the top right, even though the third finger has a fat tip, and the first finger has a fat base, I liked it best. And that one is my hand! Haha. The hand to the left of it is my classmate Kristen's hand, the one below that mine, and the last two my room mate Leah's. Her hands aren't that knobby lookin', I exaggerated her knuckles for fun.

I stayed up late last night to finish these things and to mount them properly on mayfair. Wow, did I regret that. I also had to finish up my 2D design work, which was an excersize in typography. We had to take a quote off a page given, and we had to make an expressive sentence, experimenting with fonts. My chosen quote was the following...

One of the critiques I got in class struck me as just rude, when a class mate commented that she would have "Chosen a much better font that that" for "Danger".

TOO BAD, I LIKE IT.

I have to make very few changes to this before I print it off; but on the whole the teacher liked it.

Even though we were critiquing, my brain was far from present in class. I spent the day picking random annoying poses and drawing them!

Life is good. Anyways, a bunch of posed doodles, from reaching up on a shelf, to reaching under a dresser, to.. Uhm... Bending over with hands on knees (it was supposed to be bending over to touch toes, but I failed) sleeping, and I guess this is sort of... landing... No idea.

I heard news that the next move in the strike is to-- well, strike.

Which would be lousy and lame, but what can you do?

REBEEEEL!!! YOU CAN'T HOLD BACK ART, EVEN IF YOU CLOSE DOOOOWN!

Maaaan, this is going to cut into my summer wages...

Ten Million Fireflies

Yeah yeah, there's far from ten million.

This is something I painted up quick time this morning (I mean really quick, it took me less than four episodes of Criminal Minds to paint);

It's for a project in school. I need to design a book jacket, so here I am, designing a book jacket!

It's going to be a purple cover with some book flaps and some information on my writing and a funny picture of me, and then this, for a cover.

Oh, and a title, of course.

Anyways... It looks really rough and speedy, and uhm.. That's because it is.

I'm going to crop it and cut it down a bit.. It's not totally what I envisioned, but it's fairly close.

I want to rework the fireflies.. There's something about them I'm not happy with.

Groan, my head is so sore today. And yesterday. Just a bad weekend for headaches, I guess...

I need to spend tomorrow putting this into a book jacket. It's not going to be easy, I'm so so so rusty at InDesign, it's ridiculous. And I'm supposed to be passing on this knowledge to my tutee. Yeah, we're stumbling our way through these programs together. I felt so bad when I was trying to teach him Illustrator... I kept telling him to google this, and google that, and "I can't remember how I did this, so Google it," or "You'll have to find some tutorials, I can't remember how I did this on my map..."

Ha ha.. ha ha... God, I hope I can help him pass.

Yesterday was Chelsea's 19th birthday, so we took a day trip to Etobicoke to celebrate over pizza and soda. And hot chocolate.

I'm starting to feel that sugar is the cause of my headaches... and if that's the case, I'm super super bummed out. I've had a persistant headache for the past two days, yet I can't refuse brownies or rum balls or hot chocolate or.. Ugh, my head.

My parents dropped by today! To request I wrap a Christmas present for their friends young son. They also brought me ice cream (OH MY GOD, MORE SUGAR!!!!) and a Terry's Chocolate orange. Which is holy hell sweet. I think I'll just put the rest of that away for a few months.

I can't think straight.. Maybe I should go to bed.

Out

10:05

Sliiiiiide To The Right

Had to explain to my teacher today why I missed her class last week. I KNEW she was going to think I was a slacker! Pft.. stupid car. Oh well, she understood, explained to me the homework I missed and what I have to have done for next week (collages) and stuff like that.

SO THERE'S THIS GUY IN MY CLASS... Named Profideus. I don't have any idea if I have the spelling right, but isn't that just the awesomest name?! I thought it was bloody amazing.

If I could just slide everyones attention to the right! I present Ninja. This has to be the first drawing of Ninja that I've actually really really really liked. Normally when I draw my 16 year old hyperactive character... I don't like her. This is perfect! It's got her personality (it was supposed to be the thumb on nose 'Nah nah nah!' but it just looks like a happy wave) in the way she's standing, in her different coloured shoes, her red hair.. You know what, I think it was the outfit I was always drawing her in. This suits her much much better, and I think I'll give her original costume a redesign.

Goes along with the Tinette I posted.. last night? Rebel is next on my list of characters to draw =3 Then Yukio.

I love boars

So, today was yet another crappy day >< It's just a spiraling chain of events, I'm telling you. Thought I was feeling better yesterday, being all productive like at the shop, then I woke up, came to school..

And some assface swiped my pencil case.

I'm not totally broken up about it, more pissed than anything (I was at the point where things ceased to be upsetting and just got frustrating), but I lost a bunch of time wandering around the LC looking for it, ran to security asked there, went all over the place, and no dice. Turns out honour isn't as prominent in college as I thought it would be.

Anyways, I considered going up to Andreas, but I was like.. where's the point? So I proceeded to go to first period, and.. sit in the hallway for some stretch of time.

Sarah showed up, and handed me this http://www.illustratedatcs.com/forum/gallery/index.php?n=11400, that she made for me to cheer me up.. and it even says on the back "Made just for Annie," and it worked. I was looking at it periodically through the day, because I damn well love boars and it made me feel really happy that she'd gone through all the effort of making it for me, specifically to cheer me up. I still feel happy thinking about it x3

And then Andrea showed up, who I explained why I hadn't come to see her that morning, and she hands me one of her gouache comics.. the one from christmas where she THOUGHT she asked me to close the door in proper english, but really just mumbled nonsensically at me where the only word I could understand was "Yes!" And I had a good chuckle over that. She also pulled this spiderman notepad dealer that she had brought back to toronto from home, once again.. just for me.

So those personal surprise presents this morning made the day that much more manageable with me having gone and lost all my stuff.

Anyways.. the artwork of the day.. I got this idea the moment I used the word "Piglet" in the RP Sarah and I run together. Ain doesn't like PEOPLE, but animals are a different story. It was kinda neat how I was working on this in the LC (where my pencil case got nabbed), realized I didn't know what to do with his arms, and went to class, where Sarah handed me the baby (Baeddan) boar ATC, and the little connection i drew there made me happy too.

Ainmire is now left handed (because I keep screwing up when i draw him), his scars are now the result of a run in with a Chupacabra (yeah.. screw you bear), Baeddan is seven years old, and Ainmire raised him from an itty bitty piglet when he was sixteen. Hence the reason the two get along so well!

Naaaaw, boar piggies...

Anyways, I was supposed to be working on my post >< But I think I'm actually going to do what I promised and go to bed early tonight...

My own personal.... Serial killer?

WEE!!! Okay so this is a process picture of the mask I'm working on for my 3d design class. Pretty much, we had to take a human frailty and then design a bit of armour to protect against that human frailty.

I didn't Exactly focus on a frailty, i more tried to make it how I feel when I'm at home. Its a very snug fit, almost claustrophobic (Especially now that its shrunk a wee bit), there's no actual expression on it, and the mouth is covered (I can sound like Darthvader when I breathe), because when I come home, I'm afraid to really say anything cause it always comes out wrong and ends badly. It's also something I figured represents the lack of creativity I feel while I'm here.

Feels like I'm smooshed between the pages of a book. I gave it large bat-like ears to represent that I really have to learn to listen (i.e. think) before I speak, and the fact that really all I'm ever expected to do is sit around, listen and do what I'm told. Gave it some fishy/spike dealys kinda like a lionfish just for an added element of needing to look more threatening/bigger as a defense mechanism. Gonna add some fun textures to represent the want to blend in/melt away, another defense mechanism.

I'm obviously not going to say that to the class XD Going to invent some kinda frailty. Gotta think about that =P But yeah, I'm almost finished covering it, then I can start putting in the details and having fun there.

My eyes are driving me insane, and I don't know if its from the constantly testing to see if my mask still fits and having it just that tiny bit too close to my eyes, or some kind of strain from the computer, which is silly because I really haven't been on the computer that long today ><

Anyways, gotta get back to work, and the brother wants to borrow my WoW.

Self portrait WIP

I LOOK SOOOO DEAD

but I'm actually still wide awake. Just posting my WIP for Sasaki's assignment. I'm juggling the two paintings and switching between them as i work, and even though it's two in the morning, I feel like just.. Barreling along and to continue working!

I'm very excited to start on my RP portrait.

This one here is my cultural. I'm seven generations Canadian on my dads side, so I'm just wearing regular ol' gear, but the background I took from photos of Loch Ness, in Scotland, where my grandpa on my mom's side came from.

What I wouldn't give to see it for myself one day.

It's your friendly neighborhood procrastinator!!!

Well.. yeah I guess procrastinating works X3 I prefer to call it distracting.. However either way I just spent a lot of time on this => that was supposed to be spent working on my pop up cards for 3d design ><

So.. I guess I'm going to be getting less sleep than normal tonight! I have virtually no supplies.. so I am going to be cutting out and colouring and gathering together the pieces I need and assembling them in class tomorrow.

Yay work! Wish I had actually been working on it X3

Anyways, about the choice drawing of the day...

Damn I forgot how much I love Spiderman XD I started watching the series today that I still had on my computer from Sarah's birthday gift. The IDEA was that I would let the episodes play as background noise while I worked... buuut I wound up paying more attention to the show than my homework, then I wanted to doodle something, then I was happy with my doodle and wanted to add some lines, then I was happy with the lines and wanted to add more variation, THEN I wanted to colour it, and uh.. yeah.. now its twenty after midnight and I'm still on the computer with only half of what I planned to have done by now done.

But hey, I had fun! Haven't really drawn western heros all that much, save a nightcrawler ATC i made, soooo.. Yeah. Oki, back to my pop up and my spiderman! Night night!

Today.. is empty

Visited my old high school today, as i promised my art teacher I would bring in my sketchbooks and show her what I was up to and how I was improving. Didn't draw much, didn't do much, said hey to my old friends, doodled up Renee, came home and coloured Renee, even though my computer decided it hated me.

Damn you E-Vain

So.. I was looking for something to draw, and Andrea was like.. "Draw a rodent!" and I was like.. I should practice drawing animals. So i googled rats, and now I'm all sad faced and feeling lonely because of all the little adorable baby rats and just adorable rat pictures in general.

Can't wait until I can own my own again.. If mom wasn't so terribly allergic and put her foot down on getting more, I would have gotten a pet rat a long time ago... Anyhow, i really need to draw something worthy of putting up. Some line practice or something XD yay practice.

And just an edit.. something i made a couple days ago and never put up cause.. It's my dp and is redundant XD Yay redundancy!!