6th Quarter Down, 6-8 Quarters To Go...

Oh man, Im so happy that this quarter is done and over with. I took three project-heavy classes (Beginner After Effects, Digital Video Editing and Advanced Life Drawing) and one liberal study project (English Composition).

It was smooth sailing until I hit a snag on weeks 9 and 10. That's when my sciatic nerve flared up for 11 days which pretty much ruined my plan to finish my final projects well ahead of the schedule so I don't get rushed too much at the end. I guess the changing season from Winter to Spring caused my body to react and man, this is as painful as it got. Painkillers are not as effective and I have to sleep on my sides just to alleviate the pressure on my back. I could only sleep for 2-4 hours and then my back would flare up for hours at end. My little brother thinks that I need to seriously lose a shit load of weight because my belly is pulling my lower back, adding more pressure to it.

Funny thing is that I only experienced this twice in the four years that I was in the navy (which that's the fittest that I got with all the exercise and lifting weights that I did). I'm making a conscious effort to ease off on the food that I usually eat (junk foods being a good chunk of it). Anyways, yea, that wasted two weeks of potential project time.

Well despite that setback, I still did pretty damn well I think. I dont think I can post the videos from my After Effects here, probably screencaps would do.

Here's the final project that I sent for my Advanced Life Drawing:

The entire class LOVED it. I'm happy with it too since it was a fun project to do, specially with an awesome model such as her.

As for my art stuff, I can say that it is still improving, still have shitloads to learn. There are many things that I will be practicing on for the next quarter. One of them is doing speed painting/matte painting on top of the usual anatomy Wednesday night drawing sessions. And then I plan on joining the contest that my Art Director is organizing: a sketchbook battle, 50-pages of more, due at the end of the Mar-May quarter, winner takes the prize. The interest in this contest is high with a few of the AI Alumnis expressing interest. This should be interesting.

Been inactive on this blog...

... but that doesn't mean that I have been slacking off at all. Been working hard at it actually. It's just that I feel like I really don't have anything "new" to post aside from the usual life drawing that I do.

However, I did start working in digital drawings as well. I bought a Cintiq back in December and I've been doing doodles on it. I decided to delve more into it just a month ago since our instructor doesn't mind doing our last few projects on it, so I might as well take it as a sign to seriously check on it.


This was my first attempt working on Cintiq. The lineart is jagged, the colors are flat but heck, I'm proud of it. I used Photoshop and Sketchbook Pro.

A few days after that, I started playing around with different brushes and colors.

Another color study with Barbarians and shit.

"To be, or not to be..."
Was inspired by the Shakespearean play "Hamlet", only using a Sorcerer (though one of my friends insists that it is a Necromancer). I like how this turned out, but the backround, not so much.

"One-winged Angel"
Playing around with colors, getting my lineart smoother and still playing with PS brushes.

Another color/drapery study with robes and armor

Color study using darker skin tones. Still looks flat, ugh.

Wizard study. Resembles Slayn from The Record of Lodoss War. It wasn't intentional though, haha.

I'm still working on my traditional projects. Hmm, might as well post that one too...

It's one of my final projects for my Advanced Life Drawing class. Still on WIP mode but I'm happy with how it turned out. I used Canson paper and used Conte HB. I. LOVE. CONTE.

My second semester as a 2nd-year student began smoothly. Four classes (Advanced Life Drawing, Visual and Motion Graphics, Video Editing and English Composition)  and two sit-ins (Life Drawing and Night Sessions) pretty much gave me a loaded schedule... it's fun though, but really tiring nonetheless.

I've increased my art sessions from two times a week to three--- I got to raise my traditional art A-game up and not to mention that I have to start getting used to digital stuff as well. The sad part about my curriculum is that the Advanced Life Drawing class is the last class that we can take as far as traditional art style goes. After that point, my subjects will mostly involve digital stuff all the way to graduation.