Ahnold says, "Aw wee aw wee Ahhhhhh!"

Thursday must have been a long day at work - at the end of the day we went from sharing opinions (and emailing audio) on Conan and his father's sword ($1500) to Arnold impersonations (so easy for all of us to do). This video from Mad TV was the grand finale:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvGxnLfko5w

The Thang

This Wednesday's horror movie for the evening was John Carpenter's The Thing. Or "Thang" as one of the more southern of the group was heard to say. ha! One of my favorite horror movies of all time. Not a movie that's good to watch alone, that's for sure. Even comparing it with today's CG effects capabilities this old movie still creeps me out. The story, the music, the scientific possibilities....EEEEK!! A co-worker hadn't seen the movie before, so we made sure she was there to catch all the good stuff, BWA HAHA ha HA!!!

This could be cool...read on wikipedia that as of September 2006 (from an article in Fangoria) that there is a real possibility of a sequel or actually a prequel to The Thing:

"In September of 2006, it was announced that Strike Entertainment, the production company behind "Slither" and the "Dawn of the Dead" remake, is combing Hollywood for a writer (or writers) to tackle a theatrical prequel to "The Thing" reports Fangoria."

Interesting!!!

And for a bit of fun that has nothing to do with The Thing (or does it....hmmmm?), how bout sending one of these "thangs" to your friends? I give you a spring-loaded "Ass in the Box". Enjoy!

Experiment

Just having some fun with a bit of doodling. And a dash of Photoshop painting, of course. :)
Time: About 45 minutes sketching (while watching tv, shame on me) and 20 minutes coloring in Photoshop 7.

Horrors!

I somehow also got myself involved in developing a feature treatment and brief synopsis for a horror movie pitch. Curious to see how that develops in the end and how much my involvement will actually be. It's been awhile since I've done that kind of creative writing.

What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?

I've been on a Dusty Springfield music kick this past week. A commercial that's been airing recently used an old song of hers, "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?", that brought back some old memories of me and my family in the early seventies...as well as some of my little girl dreams of what I was going to do when I finally grew up.

That's me up on the horse from the one summer we spent in Sweden at my aunt's house. If I remember correctly, the girl was a neighbor and had stopped by because everyone knew I was crazy about horses. I still remember how very high up it was, sitting on the horse's back. There was a horse drawing contest, too, sponsored by the local newspaper that summer which I entered, silly me. My drawing of a horse got published with an honorable mention, but that was mostly because I lived in Hawaii and was visiting all the way over in Sweden. Still, that was pretty cool. My first published artwork - I think I was 8 years old. :)

Enough Already!

OK...out with the sad and angry comments. They are forthwith banished! Must think positive about the future (health AND career) and do fun and interesting artwork and activities. And, on that note...

Four out of Five stars from me for The Illusionist! Sweet story about an illusionist/magician and his long search for something to give his life meaning. Or at least, that's my interpretation. Lovely score, too, by composer Philip Glass. No worries - I did NOT fall in love with the police captain as played by Paul Giamatti. His eyes just were not the same as Cleveland Heeps. I know, that doesn't really make any sense unless 1) you've read my earlier comments about that other role of his, and 2) another personal reason which I'm not going into any more detail about. :)

Interestingly enough, I also just happened to catch this BBC series about a magician's assistant, Jonathan Creek, helping to solve a murder mystery late Friday night just before I went to sleep...kept me awake watching the whole two hours. Looking forward to catching more episodes of this series!

Also, seeing both of these shows now has me all curious about magic tricks and sleight of hand...could do some fun research on that. Plus, another upcoming magician's movie that my friend told me about reminded me about a favorite magic story, Shadowlands, by Peter Straub. I'm thinking it's time for a revisit.

Barely Scraping By - Article from Gamasutra

Applying for Your First Game Industry Job

Read this article yesterday from a link in the "Gamasutra Daily" newsletter I get from Gamasutra (The Art and Business of Making Games) website. While I'm not currently working in the game industry as a concept artist, it does provide some very useful nuggets of information for any creative person considering opportunities in the game development industry. You could also certainly apply some of the information to other jobs you interview for as well.

Of course I especially liked this bit of information since it appears that I'm barely scraping by:

"As an entry level artist, you can expect to be paid at a range of $30-$45k a year. That may seem like a lot compared to what you’re making now. But when you factor in all the costs, you’ll find that you’re barely scraping by."

Ah, yes....ENTRY LEVEL ARTIST. Believe me, I think about that every time in the past year that I factor in my 15 plus years of various professional creative roles....and the job that I currently still have. After two years (ok, ok, I'm an idiot for a variety of reasons for that and I know it), I should realize that there's no interest from management in offering me incentives to stay with my current employer. I just need to stop thinking about it and simply get myself out of the place. Stop being angry and frustrated and stressed...and move on.

As mentioned previously, it's simply one of the daily whips to keep me motivated for better opportunities. I'm such a glutton for punishment. sigh.

Angelina Sphinx

Over at the DrawingBoard, the August Drawing Jam study is Angelina Jolie. Since they provided some fairly good references, I thought I'd do some studies of my own. For whatever reason, her face keeps reminding me of the Sphinx I recall seeing in some movie years ago...maybe it was in the NeverEnding Story; or maybe it was from a book I read. Must be the cheekbones. I'll have to think about it.

So, here's the thumbnail sketch I created to figure out my composition of "The Riddle of the Sphinx". I initially had a full moon shining behind the head of the Sphinx, but decided that I wanted to add in a path for the viewer to be walking toward her; and the best way to highlight that would be to have a nice light coming in from the left. I'll be working on a tighter sketch and some quick value studies tomorrow.

In other news, I'm doing some spec concept artwork for some former co-workers of a friend for a CG feature animation pitch. The story seems fun and I really like the visual tone that they want to have. And, the best thing, they provided lots and lots of references to help explain the visual direction that they want. Excellent for rapid development for characters, props and environments. In any case, it gives me something to do that isn't necessarily cute and for Christmas. I'm feeling very humbug about my work "work" at the moment. Need some Halloween gore or at least something that isn't supposed to be all cute and fluffy. Where's the variety that they promised me? My cute little characters will start carrying knives and getting bloody soon, believe me.

Hmm....there's an idea.

Argh...my hands aren't yet quite back up to my usual typing dexterity. Darn that muscle inflamation, hand tingles and aggravated nervous system! But, I'm feeling a wee bit more normal every day.

Yay!