I've been terribly busy laying the ground work in the yard for my wife's sod experiment over the last month. Also I've had a change in shifts at work making art for the Storyboards slow to a crawl. Graveyard usually allowed me time to draw from 2:00 am to 5:00, since I am pretty much alone. I now work the evenings... so opportunity to draw has been cut short. I want to keep a professional appearance for my employers especially since I am now a point man dealing with the public during this shift. Time to draw has been nixed, especially at my own home till this bloody backyard is finished.

Basically I am up at 5:30 am digging and pulling vegetation that frankly does not want to be parted from the dirt it has so lovingly infested. This frantic dance between me, a pick axe, and shovel happens till the temperature reaches African-Safari HOT. By then I'm ready to call it a day. I'll crawl inside looking like some poor Virginia coal miner punching his shift card at the mine only to find my son ready for chow and a day's adventure. All I want is a shower and my bed.

So basically I'm screwed for a while when it comes to the blog, Twitter, and my Portfolio work. Sod should be in this next week and I can have this nightmare honey-do list behind me till the next one crops up. I need a road trip to the coast. I need to see the ocean again.

Sigh.

AVT: Rescue and my Movie Theater in the head.

I have a movie theater inside my mind. It's rather nice and extensive. We are talking IMAX meets Carnegie Hall. This place has saved me many times on rather boring days in jobs that I rather not be doing. Mostly yard work. The one thing I have the misfortune of is that I have enough artistic talent to make and impression, but not enough to garner employment. It's frustrating and I find myself working harder to shore up my failings in anatomy and perspective. I know that I can do the job, I just need that "break into the business" start.

The other thing is that I observe movies that I want to see in my imagination very clearly. I mean I'm there and it's a blast! I just can't get it on paper for everyone else. AVT: Rescue is my first attempt at trying to convey what I'm seeing. For me its beyond frustrating, like looking at a third grader's renditions of Monet, while compared to the designs of flashes of metal and life crossing my big screen.

I'm driving my wife crazy trying to finish it. She considers it a waste of time deep down. She loves me enough to placate my obsessions, but we have a toddler now, so having her husband wasting hours into the witching hour and beyond can get old quick. She's an artist as well. A good one, but Princeton killed whatever it is that COMPELLS us to create something. Being a student of the Ivy League of Hard Knocks I have regained some of that compulsion to share again in 2006. The fights between us over this are getting unruly.

So besides my Dad, who I love and haven't called lately. Sorry POP! I hope anyone else who's getting to see this endeavor is enjoying my hard work and sacrifice. Not that Hasbro or 20th Century Fox disapproves or approves all of this, because in short this one of a million fan fictions circulating the Net.

Well, a lot of work happened on the morning of the first this month. Five panels finished and about twelve new scans to mull over in the wings waiting to be flushed out. Should be a good month for art work.

AVT character sheet.

AVT: Rescue Random Panels: part 2

Well, some new panels finally for the storyboard. I have no time anymore with raising an infant. Turns out I'm a pretty comfy couch for babies. Doesn't help with any new art though.\

 I'm finally able to show the Jockey forays by introducing my first panel showing the U-ship from the Alien franchise in action. More to come.

M6 project start.

Another game idea hit me in 2008 ( out of the air when bored.) .  I guess I would describe it as a mash up of GTA4,  Wing Commander,  with Armored Core all thrown in the pot for good measure. I received a mess of notes and sketches scrawled out on the back of an old bill and now I'm transferring the story and paintings into Photoshop & In-Design.

I'm forcing myself not to use any ink and lines this time for the conceptual & environmental drawings,  I can expand a little further while brushing up on my digital paintings. I am working out the bugs. 

This ship was done by using Cs3 and painting it in as a big ugly blotch of green and then refining it into an uglier blotch of black and green. I'm trying my hand at Mechs this way, so the learning curve is steep at the moment. 

Hopefully I can get Z-brush by the end of summer, then I can really get into the design of what's playing out in my imagination by creating the 3d molds saving time while not having to go back to figure out the profile or perspective lines for a mock up sheet.