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sketchmasterskillz

Imagination + Madness
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I might have to drop out of this next GGR Round. It sucks but the deadline is just poor timing, I also have a ton of commissions to work on and not to mention my new job in which I have to draw a comic around the same deadline.  I'm not calling it quits right now because I may luck out and be able to squeeze something in, but don't be surprised if you don't see a submission from me this time.  I already spent the last week drawing in my every waking minute to get my last project done and I'm close to being completely burnt out.  I really want to keep going in the competition because it seems really fun and I had some really cool scenarios planned for down the line but only time will tell if it will happen or not.  The chances of me making it in this time will be better if they extend the deadline again, but we'll see what happens.
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I'm not an authority on anything and this is advice that most of you will probably have heard somewhere else but just in case some of you don't here it is.

Don't make excuses. Draw. This goes with drawing, writing, playing music, whatever. You have to do it if it's what you want to do and it's the only way you're going to get better.  If you're inexperienced, drawing gains you that experience.  If you don't like where your quality level is, it's just going to stay there unless you keep practicing. Obvious right? Well not for everybody.

Don't apologize for your art. Quit shooting yourself in the foot. If you're showing it to friends or professors or professionals you have to let your art speak for itself.  The moment you start saying "I'm sorry, this is old." or "this is shitty, sorry I didn't have time to finish this." then you're just undercutting yourself.   If someone tells me that before showing me their art I kinda don't feel like looking at it.  You've already decreed yourself shitty and now I do too.  And sometimes things happen, you get sick, there's a tragedy, you have to work a lot and you don't get to produce something as good as you want it but don't say that. No one's going to take pity on you, there' not going to use their imagination to make your art better. Let your art speak for itself, and if it's lacking do your best to make it even better next time.

Stop procrastinating.  Manage your time wisely.  I'm just telling you stuff everyone has been telling you for years.  If you have a month to draw something, don't wait til the last week to do it, or last DAY.  When that happens you rush it, the quality is low, you make excuses about "how you didn't have enough time to finish" and apologize for it looking crappy (all things you shouldn't do remember).  If you're just going to put it off and rush it during the last week you might as well rush it in the first week and get it over with, without the stress.  Other wise you're just wasting your own time.

Take constructive criticism. Don't be offended by every comment that's not complimenting you and don't make excuses (I'm jut repeating myself now).  Don't get me wrong, if people are just saying "this sucks" or badgering you like an asshole then ignore them.  But if someone's trying to give you advice on how to grow or improve, don't brush it off.  Listen to it and think about it. You don't HAVE to take their advice, you can do whatever the hell you want, but if you're trying to get better at what you're doing then consider that advice and if it may help you or not. Try it out, it may be wrong for you but it won't hurt.

I say this as an offender of all these mistakes.  I've made excuses out of fear and insecurity which has put things on hold or ultimately made some projects never happen.  I've apologized for my poor quality art, I've been a serial procrastinator, and I've learned how to not only take constructive criticism but apply it to my work and ultimately make it better.  I hope somebody out there reads this or something like this and it helps them in some way or another.  There are obviously more lessons out there for being an artist, written by someone more qualified, and some lessons that I still need to learn.  But who knows maybe I'll write another post about those as I grow and learn as well.  

Have a good new year, and go make some art.
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Update

1 min read
Felt I needed to update my journal, got pretty sick and tired of seeing the super old My Little Pony  review every time I logged in.  For those of you who don't know, a lot of things happened since my last post.  I graduated from SCAD, lived in Savannah for a year, worked at Old Navy for a few months (ugh), and finished my first Issue of "The Bolt Strikes".  A few months ago I did a road trip across the country to California where I'm staying now, trying to somehow make my way into this air tight fortress that is the animation industry. *Sigh*, no far no progress, but I am working on "The Bolt Strikes" Issue 2 so hopefully that will be done within tbis and the next month.
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I dont understand the MLP craze but wanted to figure it out, I head that all it takes is 5 episodes to get you hooked so a few days ago I watched the first five and this is the review I wrote about it:


So I just finished watching the first 5 episodes of My Little Pony and to be completely honest my views have not changed much.  Lets start with the pros, or my likes of the show:
- In the first episode when the show gives little hints to "Nightmare Moon" like her reflection in the big hour glass, or the moon craters in the shape of her head was pretty cool and I thought that was really clever.
-"Twilight Sparkle" can teleport, and teleporting is always fucking cool
-there was one line out of all the 5 episodes that made me laugh out loud and it was in episode three when "Flutter Shy" is confronted about being nice to get a ticket and she says "no im doing this because you're my very best friend, right angel?" looks at rabbit with disapproval face  "oh, yes, we are just doing this for the ticket"
-The idea of characters being different representations of the elements of harmony is a cool idea and has always been succesful (with me anyways) in things like powerrangers, captain planet, digimon, etc.  Tho when I heard "elements of harmony" that just sounded silly to me.

Now on to the cons or things that I personally just didn't like:
- This show has a group of horses called "Wonder-Bolts", yeah maybe not reason enough to hate the show but its not helping it at all in my case.
- The mantacore in the second episode could've been cool but was lame, it was a cat with a thorn in its paw, thats just stupid and cliche.
- That dragon with a mustache was super gay, I don't think thats a con necessarily, but it was worth mentioning.
-When "Pinkie Pie" starts singing it was just like "Aw crap, here we go". And it was kinda funny that the other character commented on how out of place it was too, but then all that didn't mattered when the solution to making demon trees go away was laughter. thats. fucking. stupid. I dont care how old you are, laugh in the face of danger and you'll be fine? what kind of message is that.  next time you're in savannah and get held up by gun point for your walet just laugh in the guys face and see what happens.  Also the trees didnt really do anything at all so was there really any point to laughing them away, i don't even think they moved at all. they virtually posed no threat. (also on a side note when Pinkie was inside a tree poking her head out of its demon mouth, the moment she started laughing should've caused the mouth to dissapear thus decapitating her, just sayin)
-Rainbow Dash is kind of annoying, shes like Scrappy Doo in my opinion. but honestly they're all annoying so i cant just pick on her.
-All the dude horses are pretty much manual laborers or slaves which kind of bothers me. Sure its a cartoon for little girls, and girl empowerment and all that good stuff but a bunch of grown men watch this shit too so what does that say about them? and ladies what if a cartoon had all dude main characters and the only girls that showed up were in the kitchen makin sammiches or cleanin the house (dont bring up a japanese cartoon like that because i probs havent seen it and wouldnt like it anyway)
-Artistically, the show is not badly developed.  i keep hearing all this praise for its "beautiful awesome" animation and its nothing special, its nothing I haven't seen from other flash animated shows like 6teen or Skunk Fu.  Dont mistake the different style for amazing animation, its good but it didn't blow my mind.
-Also all the character designs are too similar, they all have the exact same pony template and throw on different colors or hair to differentiate them.  I understand why this is, its a kid show with the purpose of mass producing and selling toys.  their blank pony template can be very customizeable so that everyone can make their own unique one while still being connected, which is why there are those sites to "make your own pony" and shit.  But for my cartoons I need variety, having all the characters so similar is just boring and doesnt make any of them stand out on their own.  I like the use of different shapes in character designs, which is used in awesome shows like Mystery Inc., The Avengers, and Transformers Prime.  Their different shapes and designs help emphasize who that character is while the ponies all seem interchangeable.  I guess it also doesn't help that I grew up in kentucky and am sick of friggin horses.
-And overall the show is just waaaay to corny and cheezy for me to get into.  Which again is understandable because its a show meant for 3 to 6 year old girls, but then it gets really confusing when Bronies proclaim their man love for it.  Don't give me that "you need to watch more episodes and you'll be hooked" that shit didnt fly with me for Homestuck and its not gonna fly now.  It was claimed that all it takes was 5 episodes to make you love it and hoenstly by the middle of episode 3 I had lost interest, episode 4 I was bored, and episode 5 I was barely even paying attention anymore.  And dont try to give me any bullshit about "well you're just not sensitive enough, or you're not comfortable with your masculinity". I cried during Ice Age for god sakes, I am more sensitive then i'd like to be!

And no I'm not saying I don't like it just to save face while secretly loving it, thats stupid.  If I like something I usually want to share it, otherwise I'd kept it secret that I love the transformer movies.  ANd there are clearly so many Bronies out there to share it with so there'd be no reason to try and lie about it.  My Little Pony is not that good ya'll, its a great show for little kids but it still baffles my mind why adults would like it THIS MUCH.  Im not saying its weird that adults like shows for kids, I myself have enjoyed shows like Arthur, Word Girl, and even (god forbid) Word World, but this show has shown a disturbing amount of worship and praise for only being ok.  Can you all tell me why you like it so damn much (to those of you who do)?  Ive heard its because of the characters, honestly I've seen all these characters before and there are better characters in other shows right now. Animation is acceptable, is it because all the horses are lesbians or something? is that why guys like it?

I don't know.  All I know is that nothing about it grabbed me by the balls and makes me want to see what happens next, that and I have lost faith in humanity but whatever, you like what you like.  I only hope that one day I too can create something mediocre and accumulate a massive horde of fans.  THREE CHEERS FOR MEDIOCRITY!!!

PS - From now on any conversation I'm in that gos towards ponies I reserve the right to start listening to my ipod and ignore everyone, lemme know when the pony talk is done.
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Yesterday I turned 22, and it was a momentous occasion but not at all in the way I had hoped.  Being stung by a bee for the first time in the neck wasn't much fun, and having to spend an all-nighter working in a dark window-less animation department was even less so.  But all of that I could handle, what I couldn't handle was learning that one of my all-time heroes and inspirations Dwayne McDuffie had passed away.

Dwayne McDuffie was co-creator of Milestone comics, creator of characters like Static and Icon, and overall a very gifted writer who worked in comics and animation.  As a little kid I read comics every now and then but I wasn't at all big into them, more into cartoons, but then I was given a ton of Milestone comics and something sparked inside me.  It was really the first time I personally had ever seen comic titles featuring black heroes as main characters leading the story.  They weren't tokens, they weren't sidekicks, they weren't back-up but actual title characters.

People may think my character the Bolt is taken from Black Lightening but it really was inspired by Static.  I'm one of those fans that hates it when people call him Static-Shock because thats the name of the show, and there was a character that existed long before that.  I had a ton of comics, I had first issues, I loved watching the cartoon, and it definitely influenced the creation of my character when I was around 10 or 11.

This was extremely depressing and even had me tearing up.  I have always really wanted to meet this man and tell him thank you and just shake his hand, and I knew it was in the realm of possibility because I'm closer into the world of comics and animation now.  Unfortunately I won't ever get that chance.  So it was the lowest point of my birthday to find out this trailblazer passed away, but now every birthday I have will remind me of how great this guy was to the industry and how he helped inspire me do what I'm doing today.  I hope one day in the future I can be half as cool as Dwayne was and inspire somebody else like he did me.

I hope you all will take a look at this: www.tencentticker.com/projectr…
its a tribute thats going to happen for his creation and one of my all-time favorite comic book characters Static. I know I'm super swamped with tons of work but I'm still taking part in this.  Thank you McDuffie, I'm sorry I never got to meet you in person, but I won't ever forget you man.  R.I.P.
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