huzzah!!!!

i finally learned something in my computer arts class!!!! other, of course, than how to use a frickin' mac.... god, i never knew how much i love my PC.... anyway- as part of this next project of ours, we are to convert an RGB image into grayscale, then hand-paint the grayscale image. this was the revelation for me- i had no clue what he meant when he said "hand-paint." well, i do now, and i am in love. i came home from class and immediately started searching all my files for black & white images and color images that would convert well for the purpose, and started painting them just for fun. god, i can't believe i never found how to do this before. i'm sure as heck not going to forget >.>

here is a drawing i did of my nephew aiden from a photograph i took of him a few weeks ago at my mom's house, and next is the "hand-painted" redux i did last night.

diversion...

today was an exploration into uncharted territory for me... i got a message via myspace that one of my favorite small bands, ceann, is looking for a design for a new t-shirt. they'll make the winning design into a new t-shirt just in time for festival season/st. patty's day. this STOKES me, the thought that something i make could be made into a real product, sold to and worn by people!!! and i absolutely LOVE the shirt i made... the design came extremely easily to me, and it didn't take too long at all. what really took the longest was getting the effects right on the glass, but that was more about being meticulous than it being difficult. i have a good feeling about this, and even if it doesn't win, i'm perfectly pleased by what i made. (click the image to view it full-sized, if you somehow haven't figured that out yet... >.> you just can't appreciate the shirt unless you can read it.)

wooooot ^_^

i've been having so much fun with my new camera.... i'm still getting used to its various features, and trying to get over my desire to strangle the man who invented auto focus, but i think i'll eventually get used to it and learn how to take it into account when i compose my pictures. but i've taken a couple of shots with it that i really like, and i'd like to share them now, because it makes me happy to do so >.>

additionally, the real first challenge of this adventure has begun for me... learning how to draw! for as long as i can remember, i've had the urge to let out the emotions inside me in some form of drawing, painting, sculpting, SOMETHING, but every time i put pencil or marker or brush to paper, what comes out is unrecognizable as anything but utter crap. i've never successfully drawn anything that actually looked like what it was supposed to be. it's been incredibly frustrating for me, and is probably what pushed me in the direction of crafting- jewelry, hemp, knitting, cross-stitching, origami... things i can actually DO lol... but the frustration has only ever been slightly abated. so, i am very very excited about this drawing class, and my professor really gets me... she understands the frustration and desires i've had, and i think she's the perfect shepherd for me. look what she already made me do!:

i know, i know; absolutely the most boring drawing ever lol it was an excercise in shading and turning shapes into forms, kindergarten play for many people, but a challenge for me. i was one of the last three people to put mine up on the board, because i am an absolute perfectionist and a horrible self-critic. i was psyching myself out the whole time, and my brand new kneaded eraser is already black with my frustration... but i'm really satisfied with how it turned out (aside from the obviously too large highlight on the sphere, which i will be fixing), and i think there might be hope for me yet!

i'm feeling more and more each day like i want to just go for the fine arts degree. i just wish there were more specifically computer arts and photography classes in that degree, instead of it being mostly history and drawing with photography and CA tacked on. i never thought i could or would be this happy in frickin' SCHOOL. but i am. and perhaps even more astonishing, jim told me the other day that if i wind up with a degree from this, and don't end up doing anything related to it afterwards, he'll just be happy that i went back to school. this is AMAZING. forthe last two years, when i've thought out loud that i might like to take a class in something- cooking, ASL, japanese, anything- his first response is "are you going to do something with it?"; his second is "then, no." it's made it really hard for me, because i'm just a person who enjoys learning and exploring things. to be told that i can't explore something unless i'm going to commit to doing it for the rest of my life is... barbaric!!! i'm really really happy that i made this decision, and i'm glad that jim is just letting me do it, with no pressure and no further expectations.

hmm....

think the new camera will suffice?

to be, or not to be....

so, now comes the question...... computer arts, photography, or fine arts?

i bit the bullet today and went down to get myself set up for some schooling, which i've been thinking about for about a month or so now. it's only the crappy community college, but they actually seem to have really good programs for both computer arts and photography- they also have a photography AAS that specializes in visual communications, with courses in typography and computer graphics design and advertising... that's kinda cool, too. i know i'm going to take that typography class no matter WHICH road i take, cuz, um, i'm a geek like that >.> so, anyway, it looks like to begin with, i'm going to focus on the classes that i'd need no matter which degree i chose- and i don't mean the yucky gen ed stuff. pretty much every course i'd need for the fine arts degree is one i'd need for either the CA or photography, and some are required for both, so i'll have a decent chunk of time to dally in both and see which way i get pulled.

on a side note, the placement testing was a roller coaster ride for me..... i absolutely BOMBED the math, as i knew i would. but i could have done worse; i at least placed well enough to qualify for the one and only math course i'd need for any of the three degrees i'm looking at, and that's the good news lol..... the excellent news is that i got the highest scores my counselor had ever seen at the community college level XD she said no one ever gets a score of 100, and i didn't- but i got a 98 on the writing exam and a 99 on the reading comprehension XD go me!!!!

oh, look; a chicken!!!

some random projects that i feel like posting.... i may come back and ramble about these later; i may not. idk. but i feel like putting some more stuff up. so i do. enjoy.

*goes off to chase the chicken around the room, but gets distracted by the kitty.*

tee hee hee

cheesy and simple, but it amuses me >.>

Tribute to a Mentor

my ally, my fellow artist, my IRC loverboy, my dear friend, and my mentor and role model Graphix is celebrating his birthday today!!! this man has helped me so much in so many little ways, and he inspires me to become better at what (i think) i want to do. i adore this man more than i can say.

o/ Graphix! many happy returns, hun!

tun, turn, turn

today's exhibit is, i think, my favorite piece ever. the funny thing about it is, i have never read or heard anything about the (book) series it was inspired by. a friend of mine in my cyber nations alliance is a huge fan of robert jordan's "wheel of time" series. when robert jordan passed away, Life_Swordsman asked me if i would make a sig for him utilizing his favorite line from the books. no other instruction. i said "sure", and stared at my computer screen in a complete daze. i had no idea what i was going to do. so, i went back to my beloved homepage and did a google image search for wheel of time.

most of the results seemed to be fan art of characters, and scans of book covers. so i asked L_S what his favorite volumn was, thinking i'd co-opt the cover of that book and add the text to it or something. well, i couldn't find any that would suit that purpose. foiled. so, i asked him which was his favorite character, and tried again. foiled, again. reaching the end of my rope, i found this symbol that looked like a serpent entwined with a wheel, and turned back in on itself. it looked interesting. a few moments later, i had learned that this was the logo, if you will, for the wheel of time series. BINGO. an image appeared in my head at that point, thank god. >.> a little more digging for a suitable background, and a little- ok, a lot- of tweaking on the colour and beveling of the wheel/snake thingy.... and i had it. and fortuntely, Life_Swordsman loved it as much as i do.




i will never cease to be amazed at how one can go from having NO CLUE what to do, to having a breathtaking, uber-awesome finished product in so little time. gives me chills, sometimes... >.>

wooooooooooot!!

after what has seemed like a drought meant to crush my soul, the image tags have been restored on the cyber nations forums!!!! YAAAAAAAAAY!!! really, turning them off was meant to prevent put-out players and banned members from going all 4chan on the forums again, as some of these children are wont to do when they get pissed at the game. but, regardless of the reason, it meant that a) the forums have been much less fun as a community, and b) my nation's main source of income (aside from taxes) has DIED. no image tags = no new sig images and much fewer new flags. and at $3 million a pop, i NEED those commissions!!! that's two days' worth of bills for my nation. in praise of admin, i share some of my favorite signatures i've ever made........



i know these are very simple, but i love them. simplicity makes me happy. just as with cooking, i think it's much, much more difficult to turn out a solid product using only simple ingredients than with a bunch of fancy or flashy ones. i also believe that lettering is key. i am a fanatic for fonts. i will never settle for a font that almost conveys what i want, but doesn't quite make it. i have spent countless hours searching font sites and databases for JUST the right font. i have given myself headaches over the quest, on many occasions. the font makes or breaks an image, for me. in these cases, i definitely feel the font IS the image, and it totally works. makes me want to squee. >.>



these were made for my husband, jim- or, overlord jim, as he is known in-game. the first one of these was one of the first images i ever made for someone. really, the hard part for me here was extracting the image of the Roman general he wanted me to use. this was a new technique and challenge for me, and i had a very hard time with it. i think it came out well, though. the background i used is from one of my favorite zones in guild wars, the northern shiverpeaks. i think, actually, that i'd like to go back into the .psd of this sig and fine tune things a little, now that i'm more experienced with extraction- as evidenced by the second sig. i spent DAYS digging through screen captures from old generation one transformers episodes, looking for just the right shot of each one. jim specified which autobots he wanted, but he had no specific image in his head of what he wanted for the final product- just knew he wanted a transformers sig, and whom he wanted in it. it was during this project that i discovered defringing. god bless that little button. this was also one of the first times that an image appeared in my head of the desired finished product, and i was absolutely able to create it. that's been a strugle for me, especially through my years of wanting desperately to draw and paint but being unable to put anything on the paper that looked recognizable, let alone like what i wanted. so this sig was a triumph for me, without any questions.



this was not so much a commission, as an entry into a sig contest. the guy who put up the request for a sig didn't pick it, but i don't care. i know that i was the only person who responded who took his individual requests into consideration, and that makes me content. i don't make sigs for other people to create what *I* want to create, but what THEY want. i serve them, not myself, in this aspect of my creativity. he wanted a picture of the hindenburg- NOT burning- and he wanted black, white, and red. the text was also his exact choice. what was truly mine, though, was how i made the black and white happen. this image is a very careful cropping of a beautiful painting of the hindenburg flying over new york city, with an escort of biplanes. the colours of the painting were very warm and comforting and beautiful- rose and pink and orange and gold and purple and blue, all soft and glowy and warm. not quite the feel we were going for, though.... a quick flip to grayscale helped, but it looked too flat and empty then. this led to my first real delving through the layer effects available to me. i don't recall off the top of my head which this one was, but it absolutely made it what i wanted. the warm, glowy, nostalgiac painting became the grainy, fuzzy, dark piece i desired. the dark red of the text enhanced that feel, and i am truly pleased with the result. i could care less if lord jude didn't pick it- i know i made what he asked for. *insert big stupid grin here*

only in photography and in graphics have i ever been able to so completely take a desire within me and bring it to fruition so accurately- and very thing other things in my life are this deeply satisfying. i hope that i am interpreting this as i am meant to. i have to believe i am.