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GenmaKragoth

Duane
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Okay, so yeah, I guess I do forget all about updating this journal (never was good about remembering that sort of thing really). Since it's been over a year since I last did this, I guess it goes without saying that a lot has gone on, both good and not so much, but hey, it all makes for me being me. Been working on about 12 different paintings / drawings, all in various stages of completion. I've always been like that though, working on a ton of stuff all at the same time, and because of that it takes forever to finish any of them.

Part of the problem is that I'm one of those poor sods who thinks in pictures. Not really something to complain about mind you but it does have some pitfalls. One of them is having an image pop into your head that you like so much that you absolutely, positively  have to get out before you lose it, no matter if it's fully formed or not. While these can lead to some really good art, they can also lead to some real frustration while you're working one them. Everything's going along great, the piece is looking good, then blamo! you hit a brick wall as far as knowing what to do next. Or you get somewhere around the 3/4 finished point and it finally clicks as to what's been bothering you about the piece you started it. This usually necessitates a decent amount of re-working, which can be a good, but generally time consuming process.

Then there's the other great obstacle (and from a some of the journals I've read this year from artist that I follow, I'm in good company on this one), having your muse decide to take off for parts unknown. I know there really isn't any great solution for this one, and it's pretty universal for all of us creative types, but that still doesn't make it any more enjoyable when you're stuck in the middle of it. Usually just switch over to playing a lot of guitar while waiting for the muse to return (hell, this year I actually started recording songs for an album that I've wanted to do for years... which has it's own set of frustrations, especially when you're doing all the production, engineering, song writing and.. oh you get the idea).

Sometimes switching gears helps, sometimes it just takes time to sort out whatever sent ye olde muse packing in the first place. Often times when she does return, chock full of fresh inspiration, it leads to the whole re-working / change of path / ah crap I can do that better sort of thing on the unfinished pieces. Not always a bad thing, but still slows the whole works down.

Some of the things that were suggested in those previously mentioned journals have been really helpful at keeping the muse around more often than not. Switching up media seems to be one of the most frequent suggestion, so I figured why not give it a shot. After the last piece I posted, I wasn't 100% happy with the results I got using Photoshop. I did a lot of brush tweaking to try and make the results look and feel more like I was seeing in my mind, but there was still that "too slick" look about everything, where I was wanting more of an organic feel (yeah, I know, I don't want much). One of my friend suggested trying Paint Tool SAI (thanks :iconruhinunchuck: ) which I'm finding I really love to work with. I've been doing a lot of sketching in it, as well as tweaking and making brush setting that mimic the regular media that I love to work with (and due to a serious lack of extra cash, can't always afford). So far, I've got it pretty much knocked to be able to do a good approximation of coloured pencils, and (with a few tweaks to the preset) Copic and Prismacolor markers. I also am getting a new set of Derwent Soft Coloured pencils and a sketch pad of various coloured pastel paper for Christmas (my mom learned ages ago that it's always safer to just take me shopping for any art related gifts...). Pity that they stopped making the old Design Spectracolor coloured pencils... I loved those damn things about 1000 time more than Prismacolor pencils. They blended so much better and just had a great feel to working with them, so I'm hoping the Derwent's will be closer to them, maybe. Either way, the switch in media will hopefully keep the muse happy and she'll keep the arty goodness happening in the coming year.

Sorry for being the long winded git that I sometimes am. Too many years of reading the king of the 1000 mile long (but grammatically correct) sentence, H. P. Lovecraft, has made a mark on how I write I guess. Either that or I should just update this journal more that once blue moon. Anyway, hope that you all have a really great Holiday, and a doubly good New Year!
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Or as we used to call it Screamfest (which the folk over at Spooky Empire had to change for some reason or another). Regardless of the name, the con was a lot of fun, and to make things even better, a rather unexpected thing. I got a call from my old roommate saying that he had an extra ticket, and would I like to go... well duh, that was pretty much a no brainer. The guest that they had this year were a pretty good line-up, some stand outs on my list were Adrienne Barbeau (from "The Fog" and "Escape From New York" which happen to be two of my top 10 movies... yeah, I admit it, I'm a fan of John Carpenter's movies) who was an absolute sweetheart, Chris Sarandon (who was really a great guy, he even did a few lines as Jack from "Nightmare Before Christmas" for us, and Terrance Zdunich (Graverobber from "Repo The Genetic Opera"... he was one of the coolest people I've ever met at a con, laughing and joking with everyone, and taking time to actually talk to you, which is somewhat of a rarity at times. Add to that running into a bunch of friends that I haven't seen in years (yep, literally years), and it was a killer day all the way around. Now off to try and do some more art...
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Okay, so the title should be read with a very large dose of sarcasm attached to it, since right now I'm very much so less than happy with things technological. Well at least one in particular, that being the lovely hard drive that had the poor graces to fail completely without any sign of warning, and take all of my recent artwork and music projects along to the happy land know as "totally unrecoverable due to the drive not reading in any computer at all". I wish I was kidding... At least I have a replacement drive installed, a shiny new install of WinXP, and and RMA number for the old drive. Granted, it doesn't replace any of the lost work (which ironically enough I was busy burning backups of when the blasted drive failed), but at least I do have some older backups to pull some stuff from, and I have the finished product of the last song I'd finished and mastered sitting on my mp3 player (again, a bitter sweet thing considering I'd been planning on including it on a cd that I've been working on recording). Ah well... could be worse I guess... and now back to reinstalling everything and getting busy redoing some art.
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