You got a what?

So, yeah, I’ve been totally falling behind with the whole blog thing. Again. It’s just so hard to come up with anything to say when nothing ever happens, and when stuff does happen I tend to forget about it. But I guess I should probably put up an update or two here.

I’m finally almost done with school. I just have two assignments to finish up this week, and then I don’t have to deal with it any more. To be perfectly honest, I hated every minute of this class. Maybe it was mostly the fact that it was my third time going over the most boring parts of art history, but I’m pretty sure there was a good deal of despising the assignments. I am of the firm opinion that a history class should never require you to make up history in an assignment. There were several times I was asked to find real artifacts and then make up stories involving them. And don’t even get me started on the highly cumbersome Google Maps research project. I could rant about that for a while.

In other news, I seem to have somehow acquired a job. It’s only part time contract work, so I’m not technically an employee. I do have to drive to Irving three days a week though. Basically I’m working on creating images in Illustrator for use in Flash animations from someone else’s artwork. It’s a really relaxed environment, so I can pretty much wear whatever I want to work and not worry too much about being super professional, which is really a huge plus for me, since I fail miserably at being professional. That doesn’t stop me from being intimidated since I’m not really sure how this whole “real job” thing works yet, and I continue to be socially awkward, but I guess I might have a little money eventually? Not that I will feel like I can use it at all, what with all those ridiculous debts I’ll never be able to pay off, but it’s something…I just hope I have a chance to save it at all and not have to use every paycheck up on bills and such as soon as I get it. This does basically make me the only employed person living in this house at the moment, which is really kind of messed up. But whatever, I’m just a little amazed I’m doing something that actually has something to do with what I went to school for and not some crappy holiday retail stuff. Which I uh…kept failing to actually apply for, though I really meant to. But it all works out! I might continue to look for more freelance work on the side as well. What I’m doing now might be good for the resumé, but it doesn’t look like it’ll do anything for my portfolio, at least not for a while. Also, more money would be great.

Anyway. That’s about it. We’ll see if I have anything else to post about any time soon, though I kind of doubt it. For now, I will get back to sitting here trying not to freeze while I think about being productive. (SPOILER: I’m not going to do anything productive tonight!)

I still exist

So!  I didn’t ENTIRELY forget there was a blog here, but I did forget about it for a while, then forget my password for a long time, then forget about it some more.  You guys didn’t miss much: mostly shuffling around from house to house; putting my miniscule frame to work in moving heavy boxes, furniture, and banana plants; and coming to the slightly depressing realization that finishing my degree at UNT is probably the most reasonable course of action at this point.  I don’t regret coming here, though; taking some time off to assess my options and know what I’m doing and experience a different small fraction of the world actually does make me feel a lot better about going back to North Texas.  In retrospect, I really wish I’d done this before starting college, rather than choosing my university based entirely on a faculty/staff discount, but what’s done is done.

My original plan was to take Van’s car and drive back to Texas, but that fell through since we can’t afford critical maintenance and repairs (which aren’t worth it anyway if we’re not keeping the car).  Instead I’ll be flying back, which places unpleasant limits on what I can bring with me.  I’ll have to do without my broken in transit nice desk, and I’m choosing to do without a desktop.  My PC has been repeatedly frying itself for almost as long as I’ve had it, and I’m going to need to upgrade to something that doesn’t.  As soon as my financial aid goes through (or a computer loan, if such things are available), I think I’ll start shopping around for a laptop, since I find portability is becoming increasingly important to me.

Oh, financial aid.  This year marks the first time I actually filled out my FAFSA ahead of time, like a good and responsible student!  But unfortunately I forgot to have it sent to UNT, which means I still have to get a short term loan just like every year.  I have no idea when that’s finally going to get processed.  I hope I don’t get a dozen different refund checks for as little as 78 cents again this time.

Uhh, that’s all for now I guess.  I’ll try to neglect this thing less in the future!

I’m working! Sort of?

So yeah, I’m pretty bad at keeping up with this thing…but the fact is my life is terribly boring, so there’s not much to update a blog with usually. And when something happens I inevitably forget it exists. So, sorry about that.

Let’s see…a week or so ago I had an interview at a design group in Southlake. I am fairly certain I did really badly at it, as I do at all interviews. I never feel as though I really know what I’m talking about, and I’m pretty sure it shows. I’m hesitant, and end up saying things I possibly shouldn’t, and afterwards everything I think I should have said comes at me in a rush, and I beat myself up over acting like an idiot. Long story short, a week later I got the “Yeah we hired someone else” e-mail, and that was that. Honestly, it probably wasn’t a good match for me. The company mostly did packaging, which is definitely not one of my strong points.

This week, however, I met with someone who found an ad I put up on craigslist and wanted me to do illustrations for the children’s book she’s writing. She really liked my portfolio, and now I’m working on sketches for character designs for her. I’m probably not charging as much as I should be for this, because I just started with no idea what I’m doing and little confidence that anyone would be willing to pay even that much, but I don’t think I can really back out now after telling her, especially with my complete lack of assertiveness and pushover tendencies, but I guess I can count it as a grand opening special or something. Though I’m not sure I’m confident I’ll find another opportunity where I can remedy my pricing easily. But I guess I’ll worry about that when I’m not busy with this project.

So I guess now is the point where I flail around trying to figure out how to run this business. I need to draw up a contract, which I’ll probably just pretty much steal from someone else, since I don’t get all that legalese or really understand why it’s necessary, though I do know it is. We’ll see how it goes.

In other news, I’ve got another con to go to in about a month. I keep forgetting about it. For some reason it doesn’t feel real that it’s there. I almost don’t want to deal with it, but I already signed up and paid for it at the last one with my tablemate, so I’m pretty much stuck. Oh well, I really do need to get out of the house, but I’m a little afraid I won’t be able to break even, especially if I have to get a hotel room. I tried to do the driving back and forth every day thing once and gave up after the first day. I considered finding a park and ride somewhere so I don’t have to deal with parking in Dallas, but I’m afraid I’d have to leave a lot earlier than I’d want to…I don’t know, I haven’t really looked it up…and that’s not really something I want to deal with alone. But anyway, hopefully I’ll be able to put together some new merchandise in time, because I don’t think leftovers are going to cut it. I kind of wish I had somebody to invite over who also had things to work on so we could keep eachother motivated or something…but that’s too bad. I, as usual, am on my own. But yeah…we’ll see how that goes.

For now, it’s back to work finishing up my samples so I can e-mail them to my client.

I went to a con…two and a half weeks ago.

I really meant to come up with a post right after my friend went back to California, but it’s been a while since then and somehow I just now got around to it. But anyway.

At the end of may/beginning of june I had a friend visit me from California, as that first sentence implies. The main thing that happened was going to an anime convention in Dallas, mostly because I was a little afraid I wouldn’t be able to come up with a lot of interesting things to do around here…which ultimately I did not, since other than that con we only went out to Fort Worth for one day, to visit the Japanese garden and a couple museums there. Otherwise we kind of sat around playing video games, which was fun, but I couldn’t help but feel lame about it. I guess if she for some reason wants to visit again we’ll go for a week that doesn’t have a convention in it, and hopefully find some fun stuff to do. That way we won’t be too worn out to do much, too, since we kept some pretty ridiculous hours at that con.

The convention was pretty fun, though I think I only barely broke even there, what with paying for the hotel and table and all. I envy all the amazing artists who I’m sure do much better at these things due to either just being plain better than me or having stuff people are more willing to spend money for. We were surrounded by artists with big walls of their artwork up, and it was all so much better than mine, and also involved characters from all those ridiculously popular series that I just don’t care that much about. I guess it’s my own fault for not being a complete sellout? But still, it kind of amazes me that some people get so many commissions that they’re busy the whole time, while I’m sitting over at my table with nothing to do but watch people walk by and flip disinterestedly through my work. It’s a little off-putting.

Anyway, that was pretty much the big thing about that week. I’m not sure what it is, but I’m really terrible when it comes to activities. I have no idea what sort of attractions are around here, and most of the ones I do know of just don’t sound that interesting to me. I don’t really go see movies because the majority of them sound stupid, and I’m too cheap to go shopping. I guess I also don’t really have a lot of opportunity to go out and find out what’s there, due to not having anyone to go with. Going out on the town by yourself just feels really pathetic, you know?

Since then I haven’t really been doing much. Trying to figure out how the heck I’m going to get a job, something I am less than confident about. I don’t really understand how I’m supposed to even start looking for one that has anything to do with what I went to school for, and the usual filling out applications for retail just feels like a collossal waste of time. Everybody is sure to already have all their summer help, and they hired a bunch of high school kids. I really feel like my almost-degree counts for nothing. But I’m going to let that topic go because it doesn’t do anything but make me severely depressed.

Speaking of my almost-degree, it seems that since I’m taking my last class from another school, I won’t be able to officially graduate until after the winter semester, since I’ll have to have transcripts sent and whatnot, which I cannot do until after the class is over. Which is a little irksome, but after this long, I’ve kind of stopped caring so much. I’ve got my portfolio, as much good as that’s doing me, and it doesn’t feel like anybody really cares whether you went to school or not, only that you know important people. Which I do not. Sigh.

Okay. I keep slipping into my special ultra-pessimism mode, so I’m gonna go find something else to do for a while. Man, I’m pretty sure this whole post ended up a lot more depressing than I meant it to be, even the parts about when I was doing not-depressing things. Huh.

Alumni thing, and also links.

As predicted, that thing in Dallas tonight was full of me being awkward and not knowing what to do. Social anxiety is fun, guys, I came close to having panic attacks at least twice. I did meet the creative director at Funimation since Eric dragged me over to him, which was pretty cool, but naturally they’re not hiring, so it still feels a little useless. I’m just really bad at this whole networking thing. I just don’t understand how to do it, and it’s not like there’s any work available these days anyway.

I really ought to have gone to the Tutankhamen exhibit afterwards, since I ended up sticking around until almost 11, but with the whole needing to buy tickets ahead of time thing, as well as the there is nowhere to park in Dallas thing, it looks like I have completely missed the exhibit. I seem to be okay with that, and am apparently planning on using it as an excuse to follow the exhibit to San Francisco within the year that it will be there. (Okay I kind of just love San Francisco.)

In other news, I’ve recently come across a couple sites to put artwork up for more professional purposes…I’m not quite comfortable with directing potential employers to deviantArt for some reason.

Carbonmade and Artician

The Artician one is still in progress…I’ll be uploading more to it periodically, probably in bursts. These links will be added to the sidebar of this blog. Feel free to spread them around, I guess. They’ll have to serve as my professional portfolios online until I get my own website, which seems like it’ll be a long ways off. My webdesign skills are extremely rusty, and I think I’d rather find someone to help me put one together in the first place.

Senior Show

So that senior show thing was tonight, and both my parents went up there to sit around and we snacked on things and failed to mingle, but it’s not like I really knew anybody to mingle with anyway, so.  Let me tell you it was all kinds of exciting, especially when we were sitting around waiting for something to happen.  I get to look forward to even more failure at that alumni thing tomorrow because I’ll be alone with nobody to cling to. Awkwardness ahoy! :D

Anyway, the whole thing was pretty uneventful. There were some awards and stuff, mostly to people I didn’t know, because of that whole getting held back a year and stuck with underclassmen I’d never talked to. And then this happened?

Weird.

It was the last one they handed out, so I think by that time I was pretty much spacing out when Eric started talking about it and then suddenly it was kind of like, “Wait, what?” I generally assume I won’t be mentioned in these sorts of things except when they run down the list of everyone, so it was certainly unexpected. (I can’t help having the urge to say something like, well of course it was the illustrator portfolio that stood out, being the only one there, but whatever!)

Also, this is kind of mean to say, but I’m a little impressed they spelled my name right after consistently failing at that for a while…but I guess when you are going to make fancy awards it is a good idea to check up on that.

I have some more pictures, I guess, since everybody made me pose. I hate how I look in every single one of them, but I guess I’ll post them anyway. :p

And I’m done!

So that portfolio review last night? Yeah, I totally passed that. Now I just have to get some transcripts sent to a community college so I can take one more class over the summer, and after that I can graduate. Kinda unreal, guys.

Okay so technically since the portfolio review and the actual class are separate I don’t know if I passed yet, but I sincerely doubt it’s going to be an issue.

Now that all that work is done, I’m switching gears. There’s an anime convention in Dallas at the end of the month that I’ll be going to. I go there every year to set up a table and sell art, and it’s pretty fun. So I’m hoping to get some new prints done, and maybe even some posters, since I have a large format printer now.

Also I’ve got to work on cleaning the house, because a friend of mine will be visiting from California for about a week to go to the con with me and just hang out. We’ll probably go down to Fort Worth to go to the botanical gardens and a couple of the museums she wants to see (because she’s an architecture student) but other than that I don’t think we’re quite sure what we’re going to do just yet. I don’t really get out much, since I don’t have people to hang out with, and wandering around by myself is kinda lame, so I’m not really sure what there is to do around here. I guess I need to do research or something.

I guess next weekend is full of important stuff…there’s the senior show on the 15th, the alumni thing on the 16th, and then my birthday is on the 17th…which also happens to be the last day the Tutankhamen exhibit at the Dallas Museum is open. I really need to figure out a date to go to that, or I’ll miss it completely and be sad. (I kinda have a thing for ancient Egypt) But going to Dallas by myself is intimidating…even though I’ve been doing that all semester, this is a different area I’m unfamiliar with…and parking is always absolutely ridiculous. The tickets for the actual exhibit are expensive too, and you have to get them ahead of time. They’re having some thing on the last weekend where it’s half price if you go between midnight saturday night and 7:30 the next morning, but that kind of sounds scary, so I dunno.  I guess we’ll see.

But today is a day of cleaning! I’m gonna start with my room…it is littered with the remains of design work. After I go find some food. I am starving.

It’s almost over?

So it’s winding down to the end of the semester, and I guess I should write about that or something. I should be finishing up my portfolio and resume in the next couple days, so that’s what I’m working on now. Once that’s done, all I have to do is get it printed, which I’m a little concerned about mostly because I’m not used to producing such big projects, but hopefully after that I’ll be able to relax a little. Haha, not. I’m going to be busy even after my portfolio is turned in!

Anyway. Basically I only have one class left next Tuesday, and then Wednesday on the 6th is the final portfolio review. I’m not altogether certain what exactly this consists of, just that it’s supposed to be from 6-11PM in Denton…which sounds like it’s going to suck just a bit just because I always hated driving back from Denton at night. But I guess that is when the faculty looks at everybody’s stuff and decides if they are going to let people graduate. Which is intimidating.

Then everybody’s portfolio is going to be on display in the art building all the next week, until the 15th, when there is a senior show there that I guess parents and people can come to to see everything, and then on the 16th there’s some kind of alumni event that supposedly a lot of professionals will be at where they’ll see that stuff as well…which is even more intimidating.

I think one reason I can’t help but be worried about people seeing my work is that since I switched to having an illustration portfolio, the vast majority of what will be in my book is fanart from various anime and video games, since that is what pretty much all of my drawings consist of. I’m really not a very original person. I know the point is to show off my technical skill regardless of what the picture may be taking from, but I know that there are people out there who honestly believe drawing fanart is a waste of time and talent and will look down on people who do it.  I have this paranoia of someone like that seeing my work, even though the majority of people who are likely to see it will probably not recognize any of the characters. There are also people who think the “anime style” of drawing should not be considered art, despite the fact that it takes just as much skill, if not more, than other “real” art styles. Even though somebody once told me my style is a balanced blend of Japanese and American comics, I’m sure it’s “anime” enough for people like that. And I’m worried this sort of person will see it, too. Yeah, it’s totally unreasonable. I know I really shouldn’t care what a few people think, since chances are there will be more who won’t have any such complaints, and might even appreciate it. I can’t help it. It’s also really difficult for me to think of myself as at a professional level, since most of that work was probably done while I was putting off doing something more important.

So, yes. That is what’s going on now. Tune in sometime in the next couple weeks to learn what is going on after school! I was going to write about it here, but why cram everything into one post? But right, getting back to work now.

This here is a wishlist.

Last couple of weeks of school going on. Busy working on my resume and some other collateral which I might post when they’re finished. Finally decided on a form for my portfolio. But that’s not what this post is about.

It’s around that time of year where people start asking me what I want for my birthday, I guess. So, I thought I might as well stick a list up here and try not to feel too guilty for asking for stuff, even though that is what I am inclined to do.

I’m pretty sure there’s more to it than this, but I’ll go back and edit this one whenever I think of stuff/break and buy things on my own.

I am still around.

So I’m not keeping up with this very well, but really, there’s not much to talk about. My life tends to be pretty boring, but I guess I should have said something about the portfolio review.

The Friday before spring break all of the comm design seniors had to be up in Denton at some ridiculous hour in the morning to drop of our portfolios so the faculty and some other random people they invited could spend all day looking at them and figuring out what point everyone is at so they could give feedback on what they have so far and what they should do in the future. They gave us little forms to write every piece we were going to put in on, which they would then rate and make comments on, and at the bottom they’d  check a box that told us how likely they thought it was that we’d graduate after the semester.

Except me, apparently. I got no grades, no feedback, no graduation prediction or anything. According to the sheet of comments they sent, they think I should be making an illustration portfolio instead. Which just makes me think, “Is my design that bad?” and “So what, all of that other stuff was just a waste of time?” Even if they didn’t think I should do anything with it, it would have been nice of them to give me some feedback on the stuff I’ve done, instead of basically telling me to abandon everything. It was really quite confusing, and a little off-putting.

But I’m pretty much over that now, and plodding along working on portfolio stuff, seeing what sort of pictures I have lying around that I can put in it. Life’s been pretty uneventful lately, so I don’t really have all that much to talk about. I guess I can post some pictures I drew to put in my portfolio/on a website if I ever get around to making one. So here.