I have reached the land of BoGar

I've been a horrible horrible blogger...
For the past 10 days since my last entry, I've kind of been overwhelmed with school work and what not. I've been having some trouble prioritizing my works. Stressed is the key word.
"Irresponsible being the second..."

I'll start of by saying that today, for the first time ever, I went to the Botanical Gardens in the Bronx. I'll continue by saying that it was awe-inspiring and that there's a chance for the world not to corrode under pollution if only we treated our parks and streets just as sacredly as the Botanical Gardens.
Imagine the possibilities...
It's just a great place to be. Especially for people like me who likes an adventurous scenery and climbing random rock formations. Because there were a lot of large rock formations that pleased me immensely. The picture below was at the Rockefeller Rose Garden after I had climbed up the pillars for a great angle for shots. Then I thought
"hey, I want to be in a picture with this background!"

::click::
(awkward smile much?)
The park truly is a mastery of nature and shows what forms of life we can actually promote to make the world so much more greener. Everything about the park was simply amazing.
Everything aside from the overpriced food and NOT having any Inro Containers for sale in the gift shop. I totally would go an extra mile for one right now. If you don't know what they are, they are these:

"Inro Containers were like the fanny packs of the Edo Period."

Samurai's would usually have them hanging right from their belts. The container's main purpose to them was to hold their medicine. What the rest of the people used it for is beyond my limit of interest.
"I just really really want one!"

The three on the left were quick sketches I did in the room once they had caught my eye. Pictures weren't allowed unfortunately. I was kind of paranoid the guard would kick me out because she had walked in right when I started sketching away.
The one to the right is my own design I did for fun and to kill the final hour before we had to get on the bus. My Inro Container would carry my Inks, Markers and Pencils.
"What Would YOUR Inro Container Contain?"

I took over 100 pictures today all around the park. Most of the pieces I figure I would use for my upcoming photoshop project which is a self-portrait abstracted-collage-in your own style-representing yourself... kinda thing. I have the image set in my head of how I want it. And if I pull it off right, I'm sure I should atleast get a B++. And I really need to because I haven't done so great on the last two projects because I'm a total Photoshop newb. Atleast I have more pictures as references to scenery.
But anyways, one of the pictures I took ended up being my wallpaper! Take a look!

I took this in the Conservatory and it looks Amazing.
I had just knelt down to get the angle when the lady, (originally being in the right), started walking. But she went so well with the picture that I just had to take her with it. So I waited until she was in the perfect spot. With that lovely blue jacket, it was great that I had caught her right next to the red set of flowers.
"Flowers really do make you smile"

OH!
Speaking of smiley's, I also finished reading Watchmen two days ago!
Alan Moore, you are one storytelling God! It was such a great story and an amazing Graphic Novel to have. Once I return this copy to my friend, I'm buying my own copy and cherishing its... yellowMoore-y goodness. Then I'm going to buy another book to read. Maybe another Graphic Novel? Sin City? Bah, I'll just dig in forbidden planet or something.
"I need to read more books. More books indeed..."

Sigh. My week has been too long. Note that I'm only stating the positives of my randoms. But OH! here's a negative I'll throw into the mix.

BLOOD MANOR!?
Total hype. I was so disappointed of the 15 minutes of...
crap-ness... I went through.
WELL, it wasn't entirely crap, it had some good scares. Smart ones at that. But Tim Haskell's projects are SOOO much better and definately has you more in the mix of exactly what is going on. On top of that, no ridiculous hourly waits. In our case last night, three hours... But it was all in good fun.

Atleast in the end we got this video that we'll most likely expand a little
more stupidity under.

Shmoverfield

Now to head off for another sunday.
A Sunday of Ambious Duos and Tektoniks.

So the Painting Sucks...

"For once Politics has come onto my side."

Seeing as the "amazing" history making debate is taking place over at Hofstra University. Nassau being the neighboring school was also affected by all of the closed roads to both colleges. So to my joy, classes today, were cancelled.

Last night I contemplated on how I would make use of my day today seeing as I had no work either. I had the huge urge to head to the city for another episode of my solitary artist ventures. I was just going to train around for my day, seeing as I'm working with these lovely monthly unlimiteds, and sketch the scenery. Buildings, local parks, things that just catch my eye that I could use for my future stories.
One of which I'm working on right now is my story called
Animal Crackers.
Here's a quick markered/inked sketch I did
watching Heroes this monday.
There are supposed to be five of them but I haven't decided on
what the fifth mask will be.

"Elephant? Zebra? I'm not sure..."

But I won't tell you any details as of yet. Just know that I wish to put it in my school newspaper as my entry.

But yes, Ultimately I decided to stay home today realizing that
I have other obligations to tend to first.
Such as studying two chapters for my Personal Finance class,
my picture editing project for my Photoshop class
and finally finishing the final touches to the Sisly painting
that I'm still hating myself for putting off for so long.

But anyways, I've finished it and here's the finished product.

This is the photocopy my teacher had us use.

and here's the original Sisley.

I totally failed at second right half of the floor. I went through 5-6 layers of doing it over and over that I just let it be.

"Maybe I'll retouch it in the future when I'm over hating that section of the painting..."

I realized after taking the picture that my impatience really shows after finishing the floor. The rest of that right corner of the painting looks like absolute crap...
ugh whatever I'm so over this piece... Now to hand it in late and get a C or something...

"Thanks Mr. Negative!"

Oh well moving on.
:)

New week, Looking forward

OKAY.
So I've had an interesting week of sorts. Slightly stressful... well actually, moderately stressful. But interesting non-the-less.
For my art club this week, the third meeting of the term. All we pretty much did was hang out and get to know each other a little more. The attendees doubled this week and I can only look forward to the trip to the Botanical Gardens in the Bronx! I need to dig deeper into this world of art that I've let slip by my non productive teenage life.

The college newspaper "the Vignette" (pronounced, "VIN-YET", to my discovery) offered the art club to hand in stories and strips for the newspaper. Once I heard the offer, my mind just exploded with a yearning to work on new ideas and stories. Stories in which I've held in the un-dusted areas of my mind and cobwebbed pages of my concept notebook. Yet I stand on rocky stilts with it all seeing as my skill in story telling and play, i feel, leaves a lot to be desired. But I'm confident my friends can help me clear the murky waters.

"Boy am I filled with cheap metaphors today"

Moving on, it was later that Tuesday that I realized that I really have to learn to better prioritize my time to hang out and my time to work on my projects. On top of fighting my relentless urge to procrastinate. I found myself attempting to pull an all-nighter on that painting project which I should have let myself be done with a week ago... Now I've almost finished it, but I'm in the process of retouching it to make it look its best before I hand it in for a late grade... I really messed myself up last week.

"I can't freaking believe that I pushed it off for so long...
SOoo annoyed..."

To have made it worse, I ended up not being able to pull the all-nighter seeing as I only had 2 hours of sleep the past two days before and ended up deciding not to go to my classes that Wednesday. I woke up feeling extremely low about everything that I just didn't want to do anything with myself whatsoever.

After all of that had blown over, I felt slightly more relieved seeing as I didn't have school the following day. With it, I took a personal day to head off to the city and buy myself some art supplies for the future projects I plan to work on. The main item in mind was a fairly sized sketchbook for me to draw comic pages and story boards on for the "make an impression at artist alley at comic-con" project. I ended up buying a 13X9 sketchbook and more Micron inkey pens.

"I need to control myself with these ink pens and markers..."

That personal day to soho and treks around union square was something that I really needed. My mind had grown so erratic and just so... Unorganized that I found myself crumbling under my personal pressures. I've had so many things just biting at my mind that I just needed things to keep my attention focused and happy.
And nothing did it better than buying comics again ^^.
I dropped by Forbidden Planet and picked up

The Sword 10 and 11,


and Eternals 5...
I was mainly excited for the Sword because I'm such a big fan of it all. Eternals I just got into and totally wish I had bought the series of eternals before this one at the BigAppleCon I went to earlier this year. But it's okay, the Lobster Johnson comics I bought instead was wayyy worth it. ^^ But I'm behind on so many issues. I was following so many marvel storylines...

"Ugh, I'll catch up on Comic-Con 09! when I WOW! someone at artist alley..."

::fingers crossed::

and last but notleast, my main perk of the week was me and my friends heading over to the Nightmares Haunted House over at Delancey.
Oh-my-GOODNESS did I have a blast at Nightmares. Nothing better than being in pitchblack hallways with your friends being attacked by in your face "monsters" that smell like dirty laundry. It was such a rush.
But I was horribly disappointed by the second part; Legends... I practically walked through that whole thing just waiting for something scary to happen... The maze they had last year was so much more fun. Plainly put, Nightmares was a blast, Legends... uhm... in the past... yeah.

BLOOD MANOR HERE WE COME!

But yes that was mainly my week. A little rough at the start but all in all, some time of fun to drop some of the stress does no harm but make you spend money that you shouldn't be spending. Also we did take a trip over to Beacon's Closet over at Bedford in Brooklyn. I was amazed at how down to earth and just... urban everything and everybody was. I felt like i was in an indie movie shoot or something because the place just seemed to... down to earth. I saw so many sites that Thursday but of course, I had forgotten my camera at home. I would have colored up this blog so much more than it is now...

Until next time! (hopefully not another sunday)

Concepts and A Kindled Flame

Maybe.

I should just consider this my sunday blog... Because I usually find myself blogging on sundays anyways.

"yeah... no not really"

Any-whos, to update on my works.
This whole week has been COMPLETELY unproductive in terms of me and my art.
I found myself mostly in the city with a bunch of my friends and contemplating on halloween costumes for a party. But in terms of concepts and ideas, I've bled out a couple more on my fun little book of concepts.


The book that I hardly touch. I've had it for... I'd figure almost two or three years now. With a set of my ideas and stories and what-not. Not a lot has happened to it since... I find myself focusing more on perfecting my art than perfecting my stories. Which I'll definitely need to work on as time goes by.
But I'm happy I added on more depth to this story I'm doing dealing with cloning and the the controversies of it all. I've had the story for a while now but there's so much I want to add to perfect it for everything to just work through.
I titled it "Clone Wars" around 2004-2005 when my ideas were at it's infancy. Which unfortunately it still is. But now I feel like the title would just sound completely uninspired with what I'm trying to give off in this piece so it's in the works. I even made my first serious comic book under it.

"Oh and also"

The New York Comic-Con is coming up soon!

Well, not really... in like 100 something days

"I forget..."

All I know is that I got an email from them telling me the updates and the countdown and whatnot and I realized.

"I can make an impression on the artist alley!"

I have... like 100 something days to work on this new sketchbook I planned.
Which is almost four months of me, buying this new sketchbook and making comic panels and short story strips and pieces to show them my talent. Whether I shine or not. Or simply just blink a couple of blinding whites, I have nothing to lose and gain only the critiques of the comic industry men themselves.

"I have to do it!"

The flame burns brightest at the spark of opportunity.