Friday, December 26, 2008

Shard Six - The Sound of Music

Hope you all had a great Christmas! (and for those of you who don't celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a very happy December 25th!)

I'm feeling a little excited here. Not for anything that's happened so far, or anything that is (although some of my current art projects are looking very promising). No, I'm excited for what could be happening.
'Tis a new year fast approaching, and I'm feeling optimistic. More so then usual, I think. There's just so many things I can/could be doing, and I'm thinking there's a good chance at least a few of my plans will come to fruition.

<<><>>-------------------------------------------<<><>>

As some of you may know (and even more of you probably don't), I'm quite a jack-of-all-trades. There's a lot of things I can do. Granted, I'm only good at a much smaller amount of things, but I don't suck at most of the others. I've always loved trying new things, and my gallery tends to show that a little bit. So far I've messed around with digital painting, digital and traditional drawing, CG-realism-style artwork, written work, abstract CG wallpaper design... and that's just the stuff I think is good enough for my deviantART gallery. I've also done watercolor painting (when I was younger), messed about with some 3D-work, I've made jewelery before, and I used to build scale models and little clay doodads and thingies. I haven't quite decided yet what my "main" style is, or will be, but I'm very proud of the forays I've made into other territories. (if you've never tried it, challenging yourself by trying art styles you've never done before is almost always a fun experiment, by the way.)

I'm an adult now; twenty, going on twenty-one. I'm looking to... not narrow down my art, but focus it more. There's a good chance my art will be more then just a hobby at some point. And I'm thinking 2009 is going to be a good year to both spread out and focus, all at once.

I haven't decided yet what to focus on (although it'll most likely be digital drawing/painting), but I do have some things I'd really like to branch out into.
Music, for one.
I've always loved electronic music; synthpop, electropop, techno, industrial, trance, dance... you name it. Hell, I even enjoy good, solid rock and classic rock every now and then, and occasional metal (recently became addicted to X Japan's I.V.). Not a big fan of country, but hey, I've even gotten some enjoyment out of that as well (you just need someone who knows a bunch about the genre to show you the right stuff to listen to, hehe).
What I've wanted to do for a while now is actually make music. I have a guitar, I have a piano, but I've never been particularly good with/interested in either. I'm horribly electronic-oriented. But keyboard, now that's something different. Keyboard Synthesizer, to be precise.
The Roland SH-201, to be entirely precise.
That's my wishlist for the upcoming year. Subject to change; I've yet to find anything that looks better then the SH-201 (from what I know, it's great for starting off, and groups like Ladytron use them professionally). There is the JUNO-G, which is also used by Ladytron, but that's nearly double the price. The SH-201 is six hundred bucks (I'm told that's a very good price for equipment of the type), which will take a while to earn up, but it's doable. Perhaps I'll have some music to share someday.

<<><>>---------------<<>>

ĜЄΘ.>

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Shard Five - Picking Up the Pace

*gasp!* A whole week past with no blog updates?!

...okay, so that's extremely normal for me. But the plan is to make that less so.
Not quite to the point of daily updates, certainly. I don't have nearly enough interesting things to talk about at this point in my life (although I would love for that to change). But weekly seems like a good, solid goal, eh. Even if they're short entries (or possibly even especially if their short entries).

<<><>>-------------------------------------------<<><>>

Alright, to update from my last entry a bit, I've made slight progress on my art projects. Here's something I haven't mentioned; nearly every major project I've got planned is a giftart. A bunch of birthdays recently, and Christmas coming up, so it seems like a good time to exercise my artistic muscles. No spoilers, though. I'm not telling who's getting gifts, not until said gifts are finished. It's entirely likely I won't be able to finish a gift if I leak out the recipient (not by personal choice, simply by personal fault).

But one non-gift project in the works that actually looks to be getting somewhere is a complete style rework of Fragmented Infinity. If you check now, you won't see much; just the header has changed. No worries; that header is a mere preview. I know the resolution is quite cruddy, the "real thing" will look much better, is the plan.
Also, this blog will get the same treatment, eventually; I already dug around in the .CSS and HTML coding for the current theme, and I don't think it would be too challenging to rework my own theme for it all. Perhaps something that will match Fragmented Infinity, since they both share a bit of the same theme.

<<><>>-------------------------------------------<<><>>

Ah, I think I had more topics to cover at this point, not just artwork. But 'tis late; I'm worn out, and set for bed. Perhaps whatever it was will come to me again later on.

I've actually got a question here, now. I'm still not quite sure how many people actually read this, but I'd like a little feedback here. (this doubles a bit as a "who's there" for me as well.) My question is my writing style. I'd like to think that just about everyone, myself included, has a bit of a unique style when they write. Sure, there are archetypes (some people stick to chatspeak exclusively, others enjoy expressive comments, with smiles and exclamations here and there, for example). If I had to place myself, I... don't think I could think of an archetype, but I'm quite sure I fit in one.
Anyway, what I'm asking for is just comments on how I write. is it wordy? Is it confusing? Is it enjoyable? No need to be specific, vague critique would actually be pretty appreciated.

The reason I ask is due to the Fragmented Infinity storyline. I've been making some good strides in the storyline, and it's starting to fill out a bit from plot point to plot point. But I'm still working on really filling out those "spaces" between the exciting bits, and curious to know if my normal, everyday writing style would translate well to an interesting story.

...you could just leave a comment saying you've been here, too, that's also greatly appreciated, actually...

<<><>>---------------<<>>

ĜЄΘ.>

Monday, December 1, 2008

Shard Four - Slowly But Surely

Ah, yes. 'tis been awhile since I posted here, despite my plans to use this often. I hope to change that a bit; I'm used to really thinking out every post I make almost everywhere, so I tend to avoid making updates if I don't have anything "exciting" to say.

But that's not to say I don't have new things to discuss (or older topics that I've never covered, or never covered enough). I plan to start making entries here on a more regular basis, even if I don't make them all gigantic (which is also a good thing, probably).

<<><>>-------------------------------------------<<><>>

So, what to cover? We'll start with the world of art. I have a few projects, in various states; some projects which have been delayed, but in progress (I can think of three at the moment). Other projects are still in the planning stage, and may or may not end up coming to life at all. But hopefully at least a few will...
I forget if I've covered it before. I don't think I have, here. DAZ|Studio is a program I've added to my artistic toolbelt; it's a 3D model rendering program. Not to be confused with a 3D model creation program; Studio is only designed to pose and arrange pre-made models into scenes. But it's very good at what it's designed for. I use it as a base for some of my newer, original digital works. I can create the pose or scene I like using models in Studio, generally without textures, so that I can use the resulting render as a base for a digital painting or drawing. It's quite helpful, and gets me past the boundary of my limited anatomy-drawing skills (and adds to those skills as I go, to boot).
So far I've only finished one work in this manner, that being this giftart for a friendly Gaian and his girlfriend. It's not spectacular, in my personal opinion, but it's a good start. And I've been working my way up to some digital paintings of my original characters using the method. A stylistic painting of Myrkr will most likely be the first one finished, or perhaps a little something featuring my newest character, Lysa.

<<><>>-------------------------------------------<<><>>

You may have noticed some links the the previous section. Let me explain those a bit. More importantly, let me explain where they go.
Fragmented Infinity is the storyworld I've been designing for quite some time now; it was previously known only as Vynaiocc, which had it's own MediaWiki website, but time passed, the storyline expanded to encompass more then just Vynaiocc (which is one of the worlds in Fragmented Infinity), and the VynaioccWiki eventually was shut down by the webhost (more or less by my choice).
Fragmented Infinity - the website - is a "normal" website design, instead of a Wiki-style one. I always wanted to try my hand at regular web design, and I lost the need for a Wiki-style design after a while as well. There's not much content on Fragmented Infinity at the moment, but it'll be expanded as time goes on, to contain character bios, a glossary of terms and other information, world info, and eventually, the story itself, most likely.

<<><>>-------------------------------------------<<><>>

As far as personal updates, there's not much I can think of right now. I've been sick with a common cold for the past few days, but that's clearing up, I believe. Looking for a job (sort of) as well; I'm not out there filling out applications as much as I should be, but that's on my to-do list as well.
...there's an awful lot of things I plan to do, isn't there. I need to focus more on finishing what's in front of me, instead of sitting back and thinking up more projects...

<<><>>---------------<<>>

ĜЄΘ.>