connikins gave me five words.

( Words )

There is something deeply wrong with me.

Well, I don't really think so, but apparently I am a foul aberration. Why?

I want to go back to school now. I'm tired of holidays, bored of Lancaster and my job and having all this filthy free time which I waste doing bits and pieces of stuff and spend hours every day partaking in downtime. Doing not a whole lot. Not much. Wasting time. I draw, but not with the same violent, driven, manic purpose that I came to love since last September.

I was to go back to school and take my classes, learn animation and Painter and whatever else they throw our direction this year. Anatomy, studio, materials and techniques, digital, awesome! History and mythology I'm less thrilled about, but I miss spending eleven hours a day somewhere, doing something, with no distractions other than mass synchronized humming or Art Wars or lively debates about which animal would be the most delicious. I like my major and my classes and most of the people I'm in there with.

Some people get along better without pressure, but I love it. It seeps into my bones and starts fires and the less I sleep, the harder I'm pushed, the better I do and the more fun I have. I like being up to my ears in work.

Roll on September.

I don't understand people who don't care about what kind of music they listen to on a deep and savage level.

I don't understand people who listen to "whatever's on the radio" and shrug over songs, albums, live shows and whether or not Let Go's 'Almost, Always, Maybe' totally rips off Green Day's 'Having A Blast' and how The Living End were so much better when Trav played drums and why do people think 'Wonderwall' is such a great Oasis song when it's all nasal and whiny and 'Don't Look Back in Anger' is so much better.

This doesn't mean I have to talk to you about all this, or that I care if you care about the bands I listen to. If you want and you do, we can, and we might end up killing or hating each other over whether or not Coldplay are annoying ('Yellow' is atrocious, 'Fix You' is great) and if The Sex Pistols really had any musical merit and if Screeching Weasel should get back together again and tour. I don't mind if we don't have intersecting interests, it's always interesting to hear about stuff I'm not so familiar with, I will only make fun of you a little bit for your more tragic tastes, but I will tell you mine so you can have a go right back. Then we can compare concert ticket stubs and complain about how Architecture in Helsinki used to have way better live shows and vocal harmonies and now their best song was the Doctor Dog cover of 'Heart it Races'.

And I don't really understand if you don't care, if you don't have a similar collection of nostalgia, awe, delight, enthusiasm and rage. My parents love music, I spent six years seeing as many bands, big and small, as I could, and it continues to be a huge part of my life, both as creative inspiration and something to see at the pub on the weekend.

Music taste is how I have chosen to judge people. It's as effective as any other way; both superficial and psychologically revealing, like the physical appearance people choose to give to the world (clothing, posture, etc) or their favourite colours or films or whatever. It's a window through your ear into your brain, or soul, if you will, and while it's not a dealbreaker or the be-all-end-all of anything, I'm still going to do it.

And trying to be sneaky with your casual Indie Rock Hair Flipping and "oh, I listen to everything" really says "I am insecure about my music taste" and/or "I listen to some hideously embarrassing, unhip music, and I am flipping through my mental catalogue of obscure bands that have added me on Myspace recently in order to head this conversation off at the pass and keep you from finding out my giant throbbing passion for Creed" and you are not fooling anyone. I will respect you more - after I finish laughing - if you just admit that you like Creed, because I will find out eventually anyway. I have special radar for things people don't want me to know, which is why I choose not to get tattoos - one day, I may just pack in the illustration gig and become James Bond.

Which is why, when I meet people who don't care about music, have no auditory preferences and never bother seeing live bands because it seems sweaty and stupid, I get the distinct impression that they have no soul.

So, you might think I have awful taste. I might think you have awful taste, but I'm interested in your awful taste. I like talking to people about music and I don't get to do it nearly enough.

Tell me your top five bands of all time and your top five of the moment, and why, and a song or two I should hear by them.

Apparently, everything I draw now has to have a vanishing point (or two, or three) and fairly meticulously calculated perspective.

I still make up a few things, but generally, I check my points and rule my lines. Even organic environments get a once over.

Contrary to popular belief, this is more fun than what I used to do, which was bullshit the whole environment and hope it worked. I just need a good method for it in Photoshop now, or a scanner, and I will be unstoppable.

I have a feeling a scanner will be easier.

I love Pandora so much.

Best idea ever. And it's not a website you get on and spend two hours flicking through; just fire it up and let it go.

It keeps playing Radiohead, but there is a skip song option.

After twenty one and a bit years, I have decided that I am quite happy being me, and even though there are things I would like to change about myself or my situation, or learn how to do, they are not the kind of things that would only be possible with magic or time travel.

Also, I really enjoy Britpop and other assorted English alternative rock bands from the late eighties and early nineties. Except Oasis, and I'm not keen on Radiohead either.

On a less cheerful note, I think I might have something pointy living in my ear, I have to get up at arse o'clock to go to work in the morning, and I definitely need to clipper the back of my head before I end up with Hint Of Mullet.

I got my grades today.

They're quite good, actually. Five As, a B+ and a C+. The C+ was for math, obviously. I still don't like math and I suspect I never will, but now I rest easy knowing that never again do I have to take a class in it.

Additionally, I bought some armature wire and I'm going to go dumpster diving for stuff to make sets with when the weather improves. I'm saving my pennies for Apoxie clay to make the joints and non-moving parts with, and then I will be unstoppable.

- Work at my crappy job.
- See Leigh as often as possible.
- Get my US license and then a motorcycle permit (and then learn to ride).
- Clean out the fridge (on par with "pave the road to hell") and perhaps even scour the microwave.
- Go see my grandmother in Pittsburgh.
- Build a light table with animation pegs.
- Save up for the Mac laptop I'm supposed to have for school, and then put Parallels on it just so I never have to use iTunes.
- Sell some stuff.
- Write a lot of stuff, whether in script, comic or storyboard. Maybe even prose, god forbid.
- Draw an obscene amount of fanart, just because I can.
- Watch some ridiculous television, like Torchwood (SO BAD/SO ADDICTED), Ashes 2 Ashes, Stargate: Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica, the US version of Life On Mars, season five of QI and whatever else I find with a good seed/leech ratio in the bowels of the internet.
- Perhaps go out a few times. Socialize, see bands, etc.
- Make Camberwick Green parody animation models and try out stop-motion.
- Make anatomically correct hand puppets.
- Crochet things.
- Work on my Sixth Doctor costume.
- Become competent at digital painting and perhaps learn a bit more about Painter 11, seeing I have a class in it.
- Read a lot of books. Trashy adventure, inane sci-fi, spastic fantasy; books with no academically redeeming features. I want to shove all the intellectually worthy things I learned this semester out of my brain, or at least smother them with swashbuckling.
- Plan out my portfolio for next year's internship applications and perhaps get a start on that.

School is over! I can do whatever I want (in terms of drawing) for the next four months. I choose to work on a portfolio for my internship applications next year, get some solid 3D work done, build a lightbox and find out more about animation.

And draw an obscene amount of fanart. Obviously.

( This is the end result of the Utopia picture, by the way )

Intuos 4 = pretty damn excellent.

I've only done a little bit of trying out, but I am mightily impressed. This is an upgrade intended for people who do a lot of digital art; people who use it a lot and are capable and confident with it will get their money's worth on it and appreciate what Wacom have done. Those who use it casually will get a kick out of the new bits and pieces, but won't quite feel the full scope of Awesome. If you're a casual user of tablets and not burdened with spare cash, the Intuos 3 will do you just fine. Hell, if you're a hardcore user and on the poor side, the Intuos 3 will be faithful, loyal and true (and only occasionally do that weird scroll-zoom sticky thing), and totally worth every cent you spend on it.

It is better than a Cintiq, in my don't-need-to-see-my-hands-to-draw opinion. I really like it, and like all the other Wacom products I've used, I can't say enough good things about it. They make excellent stuff.

And no, I didn't buy it. I have been very generously allowed to borrow it until Friday.

I really really don't like weekends.

Or Lancaster.

( Epic Tonal Work )

If this doesn't give the teacher a minor aneurysm, I give up.

So, my end of semester project for digital illustration class is a bit lame. Instead of getting a real design brief, we have a "personal" project. It's a 16x8.5" digital painting/manipulation of our idea of 'Utopia'.

Um. I'm not sure. I mean, I can think of about a squazillion things to put in that size constraint and have a great time with, but everyone is being so...deep. The teacher seems to want that too, and kept asking me questions about my thumbnails and why they were this and not that and what's that there for and do you have a reason for the umbrella and why are there giant candy coloured mushrooms in your Utopia? I am not good at deep and soulful. I'm fairly sure that at some point beyond my memory, I swapped my soul for a vivid imagination and good compositional skills.

So, should I stick to my guns and just do the crack-trip mushroom field with creepy animals (pros: wicked fun to draw and colour, no perspective and line-ruling needed)? Or go the fanart route and Star Wars/Doctor Who it up - or maybe even a mash up of the two (pros: still fun, also hilarious)? There is the third route, which is to really try and be deep and soulful and whatever and do a massive insane cityscape with graffiti and black ink lines and crazy perspective that would make my perspective teacher shed tears of joy (pros: would be awesome, cons: don't really want to do it)?

Really, my idea of utopia is enjoying what I do. I would get epically bored of Scenes of Pastoral Beauty and my idea of a good time relies heavily on my perception of the situation.

Oh, fuck it. I will just have me with pirate otters, swashbuckling on the high seas and riding seals and burying treasure in a cave with cat skeletons wearing snazzy hats arranged around the edges. Charlie can make of that what he will.

SO, I JUST MAILED MY PORTFOLIO TO PIXAR'S STORY DEPARTMENT FOR INTERNSHIP APPLICATION PURPOSES.

I am having a small spaz attack. Okay, a medium one. With knobs on.

One piece left for my internship application, just some finishing touches!

Two stupid wanky essays for humanities classes that I have no interest in writing but will vomit out anyway!

Four and one tenth final projects for studios, that I know about so far!

A seven panel storyboard for an advertising job!

My lame day job, which pays the rent!

And about a million things I would like to do if I had free time!

Perhaps a social life, mostly conducted in the computer labs when people are working late and having a big freakout!

Yeaaah!

I've always wanted a screen accurate costume for something, and for it to be of something I would wear around. Star Wars armor is obviously high on the list, but really expensive and gets kind of hot in summer. I cannot see it being popular on the Philadelphia subway either. So, I look to the more sensible Doctor Who option.

There are a lot of Tenth Doctor costumes, a lot of Five and Four and I think even Eight, but Six does not get a lot of love. This is because Six looks loony. But, despite the violent clashing colours, Six is still my favourite Doctor, next to Nine. And I don't have the ears or the Y chromosome to pull off Nine.

It's going to be one hell of a costume, but I'll start at the feet and work up. Green shoes and orange spats are easy enough. Then yellow and black pinstriped pants. Oh boy.