busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy

Happy Thanksgiving. I have nothing holiday-related to share with you, no art or anything. Sorry.

All I have is a page, some snippets of projects I am currently working on all at once for school:

Top two bits are a rollergirl made of clay and a logo thing for the package she will be in. Beneath those, closeups of Independent Study Pieces 3 and 4, and in the bottom left corner, closeup of a pulp magazine cover assignment.

All have made considerable progress since I put this thing together and posted it on Tumblr.

Things need doing:

-Finish all of the above pieces.
-Revise and print Independent Study Piece 2
-Finish Independent Study Piece 5
-Still-life photography
-Buy printer ink in order to print above still-life photography things
-Work Black Friday
-Write two Spanish papers and a presentation on Alejandro Jodorowsky
-Design a new header image for this website, I'm getting sick of looking at the current one
-Upload stuff from LAST photoshoot, the painting with light one, to gallery
-Clean up iTunes music collection, I hit "skip" way too many times these days
-Devise a short, possibly 10 pages, comic to work on over Christmas break
-Revise older pieces from this semester over Christmas break
-Study Spanish over Christmas break
-Wonder why I'm referring to it as a break when I'm gonna be doing a ton of stuff
-Oh hey you've got Christmas shopping to do too, Brett

I'm sure there's a lot I'm leaving off...

That's it. Back into the grind.

[Brett]

Briefly:

Failed Works in Progress again, but due to a technicality and much arguing, there's a 4th and final chance. But I may not take it. The road is forked. I either try one final time, face the giant beast that's been a burden for over a year now, or go the other way, the BA route, and face several smaller beasts.

Either way, turns out I'm NOT graduating next semester. Fuuuuuuuhhhhh-

Next:

Studio photography. Been doing light-painting and multi-flash crap these past couple weeks, with a handful of friends. Here's a small sample, the first one being my best friend David wearing a gas mask, the next one being me jump-roping with Christmas lights:

Other projects move at a glacial pace. Works in Progress and other added stresses last week caused a complete nosedive in productivity.

Instead, I have been indulging in horror movies, Silent Hill 2, and comics, specifically Matt Fraction's Invincible Iron Man and Jonathan Hickman's SHIELD. Hickman is a writer a friend recommended to me, and I had seen his comic the Nightly News, which he wrote and illustrated himself, but SHIELD, which he's doing for Marvel, is incredible. Isaac Newton, Nostradamus, and Leonardo Da Vinci are all in it, Galactus attacks Rome in the renaissance days, and all this other crazy, weird stuff that's awesome. I love it.

This is my current wallpaper on my laptop:

Suda51, my favorite game developer, creator of No More Heroes, my favorite Wii games, in a David Bowie shirt. Don't ask.

Been doing a lot on Tumblr too, which you can get to by clicking, uh, "TUMBLR" over on the sidebar to the right. Go ahead, do it.

Not much more to say really. Back to the grind now that my batteries are recharged...

[Brett]

Since this summer, I have been listening to a LOT of punk rock, despite not being much of a punk myself, and well, it's starting to bleed into my art a whole lot. Example one, I designed a beer bottle label with my friend Shannon on it, called Big Daddy Voodoo's Pumpkin Ale.

BEHOLD:

And our next illustration assignment is a poster for A Midsummer Night's Dream. I decided to do a punk interpretation, and drew this:

You know you dig it.

I've also finally completed one of my five independent study pieces! Well, maybe two, but this one is for sure finished. I call it Rusted Scream:

I'm really proud of it.

Also, for Works in Progress, I have severely tweaked the colors to Cyberpunk Blues, which I was never terribly satisfied to begin with, and I think the changes are an absolutely HUGE improvement.

BEHOLD THE FIRST PAGE:

The new colored pages have replaced the old pages and can all be seen in the respective gallery. You should be able to find it yourself, right?

As you can tell, especially if you're friends on Facebook or MY NEW TUMBLR or Twitter or something, I've been super busy. Works in Progress is Thursday, and I'm scrambling to get some stuff finished in time to show, gathering other pieces, and listening to as much punk and aggressive music as I can for the purposes of staying in movement. I can't stop.

A friend introduced me to Japanese Animation, a post-punk band by Lupe Fiasco. Their album is available on their website for free, and it's just what I needed. It's fast, frantic, danceable, and makes me want to keep moving.

That's it. You probably won't hear from me again until I'm on the other side of this week. Wish me luck.

[Brett]

I'm in a weird mood right now. School is completely to blame, maybe.

I may have mentioned it before, but there's this thing, called Works in Progress. It's a sort of portfolio review, where a committee of art professors come in, look at a portfolio of roughly 20 pieces you've compiled, talk to you, then decide whether you pass or not. It's how you get to be a BFA art major as opposed to a BA. You have three chances, and after that, you're stuck with a BA.

I've failed twice so far. Today was the initial meeting for this semesters WIP, meaning I need to really start gearing up for this third and final attempt at slaying this poisonous beast that's been lingering over me in the shadows for a year now. Those first two failures were highly emotional experiences. Lots of crying and screaming, followed by eating comfort food at a local teriyaki place, licking my wounds.

Sitting in that meeting, I could hardly breathe, my guts had tightened, muscles clenched up, and I felt like puking. I was trembling, first out of severe nervousness, then just out of hatred. I've grown to despise a lot of things about being an art student, a lot of the pressures, a lot of the politics and stuff that goes on behind the scenes. All the unnecessary stresses that I really don't need.

I grew even more irate when we were told that they bumped the dates up for WIP further. The end of this month, just before Halloween. I've done very few projects this semester, and was hoping it'd be in November so I'd have more time to put together a decent portfolio, but I only have what, two weeks? Insert a handful of choice expletives here.

I've decided that I'm probably not best suited for a BFA. Not for graphic design and comics work. I don't really want to deal with the added pressures of putting together a gallery showing for my graduation. So the question is, why am I going through this crap a third time?

The simple answer is to give these professors the finger. If I pass, it'll be one of the ultimate successes. If I fail, I'll rant and scream and rave. And then I'll move on.

...I'm trying to be more cool and zen about it this semester than I was. I'm not sure if it'll really work.

I'm getting myself amped up with a lot of punk rock, Queens of the Stone Age, and K.M.F.D.M. Music motivates me more than most things.

I have new stuff I'm working on, including a beer bottle label featuring the loveable mug of my friend and roller derby announcer, Big Daddy Voodoo of Technobohemia. Very sloppy and awesome.

Um, that's it. I've got a Spanish quiz to get studying for. I just had to rant. Thanks for reading, all two or three of you.

[Brett]

Stuff. Things. Lots of them. This blog has basically become the place where I empty the loose contents of my brain and try to make some sense of what falls out.

I started wondering what it would be like if Hellboy and Scott Pilgrim met, how awesome it would be. They would of course have to fight zombies. And so I sketched it:

Candybar wrapper design thing:

Not as interesting, no.

Studio photography, I've shot three different models so far, and here are my favorite pics of each of them:

You'll find all of the shots in the HOLY CRAP NEW Studio Photography gallery. And there's new stuff in the Design gallery, too.

New comic idea, a short one, coming into my mind, and I want to get it down, but at the same time, I've still got that independent study to work on. 5 pieces before the end of the semester, yes. Arg.

I have been watching nothing but Twin Peaks and the Venture Bros lately, and it's one excellent combination. Still playing the Scott Pilgrim game every so often, slowly trying to dig through Metroid: Other M, but more than anything else enjoying the demos for Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and Vanquish.

I'm trying to draw more often. I really don't do it nearly enough, and doing silly fanart like the Hellboy and Scott Pilgrim team-up helps keep me going, I think. Expect to see some more.

Do I or do I not want to go see the Social Network and Let Me In? I'm not sure.

[Brett]

Back in the full swing of things, attending classes, working my butt off on projects and stuff, with little free time to spare.

I have a large number of things I’d love to bring up, but I want to focus today on just one topic. I’m indulging myself here a bit, and things are about to get really nerdy. You may want to head to another, better site. May I recommend the esteemed Warren Ellis?
Anyways. The Tokyo Game Show has been going on this week, and a large number of things were announced, but only one title really stood out to me. That game happens to be the newest project from Suda51 and Grasshopper Manufacture, a collaboration with Shinji Mikami, with music by Akira Yamaoka. The game is Shadows of the Damned. Check out the phenomenal trailer which I have watched too many times:



You’re probably not terribly impressed. Just another 3rd-person over-the-shoulder action game where you’re some rough-looking man fighting demons and monsters, yes? Well, okay, yeah, I guess so, but while many people are screaming “GENERIC!,” I’m quivering with anticipation.

You see, it may not look like much, but this a game from Suda51. You know, the guy behind Killer7 and my personal favorites, No More Heroes and its spectacular sequel. Shinji Mikami, he directed Resident Evil 4 (aka the awesome one), the upcoming Vanquish, and other fantastic action games. These guys also collaborated on Killer7. And on top of that, Akira Yamaoka, the guy responsible for making the atmosphere of the Silent Hill games so damned terrifying with his sound design and music. He’s also quite the metalhead, with his soundtrack to Contra: Shattered Soldier being one of my absolute favorites.

Yeah, I know, our protagonist is another rather buff, ugly, older dude, but he really appeals to me. Most game protagonists are typically white whereas this dude is Hisapnic. When I hear him scream “my name is Garcia Hosper! Hunter of demons! My wrath is your hell!” it sends shivers down my spine. See, all we know of the plot to the game is that the love of his life has been abducted by demons and now he’s driving headfirst into Hell to kick a lot of ass and rescue her. I guess it’s similar to Dante’s Inferno, which came out earlier this year, except less poetic, romantic, preachy, and more rock and roll. I think Suda51 just has a thing for badasses in awesome jackets, and Garcia seems to be no exception, plus, c'mon, storming angrily into Hell declaring your intentions? That takes some stones, man.

Then there are little things: Garcia roughing up a vending machine for Absinthe? Something tells me we’re gonna see a lot of hallucinations in this game. Combat looks brutal, and the weapons look wild. That torch we keep seeing him wield seems to play a big role too. And how can you NOT enjoy kicking a monster through a wooden fence and see it splinter to pieces?

Suda51 is my favorite game developer, and I have the utmost faith in him that this game will be one wild, wild ride, and with Shinji Mikami at his back making sure the action is tight and visceral while Akira Yamaoka delivers some punishing and awesome guitar riffs, I’m sure I will not be disappointed.

I cannot wait for this game to come out.

[Brett]

WHAT UP MOFOS

First week of the semester is OVER! Complete! Done! I now have my footing and I must buckle down and get ready to blow stuff up!

I've got an independent study going, meaning no class meeting, just working when I can. I had to sit down and figure out what I want to do, and I kind of decided it on the fly, but the more I think about it, the more excited I get. Thematically, I'm going all biomechanical, body horror, crazy surreal ugly things. We have HR Giger, David Cronenburg, Shinya Tsukamoto, and that dude who wrote Antibodies (a favorite novel of mine) to blame. I'm gonna be wildly experimental, and it'll be Photoshop plus collage plus anything else I can think to include, and it's gonna be AWESOME.

I hope.

My first handful of assignments in Studio Photography involve photographing models under certain kinds of lighting, and I'm wracking my brain for ideas. Do I revisit some of the ideas I explored in Black Hole Ghost? What about a mummy? Something post-apocalyptic? I have no idea. I'm at a complete loss. I know a few people I'd LOVE to photograph, but I don't know what I'd do that's interesting, you know?

Our first illustration assignment is this: "Some of my best friends are hominids." Yes, hominids, as Google Image Search will handily illustrate:

I'll post my idea once it's done. Got some work to do.

And Package Design? I did this:

Um, yeah.

I also am taking Spanish. Urg.

Everyone is at Dragon*Con this weekend. My roommate, a number of friends, and a co-worker friend. I have no one to really hang with, and so I will be playing a lot of the Scott Pilgrim game and Metroid: Other M in order to stave off the loneliness until the inevitable return.

The Scott Pilgrim, despite its glitches and the occasional locking-up, is pretty much perfect, by the way. Listening to its soundtrack on campus makes me want to wander around and beat up frat boys.

Metroid: Other M? Less than an hour in, and I'm not quite sold on it yet. It's so unlike any other Metroid game that it kind of hurts. And the voice acting itself hurts a lot. Yeah...

So. Lots of stuff to do, and here I am writing a dumb blog. Off we go!

[Brett]

Holy crap where did the time go?

I've been supremely busy. Working two jobs was a killer experience, and classes for the Fall semester start tomorrow. I basically had no real energy to work with, despite wanting to talk about a bunch of things, so I'm going to just send sparks flying here...

-I have seen the Scott Pilgrim film twice now, and I am in love with it. It is perfect. If they were real, Sex Bob-Omb would be one of my favorite bands. It makes me want to get back into making music, too.

-I will be downloading the Scott Pilgrim game this week. I got the soundtrack, which is amazing. Sadly, my iPod is dead...

-Found Roadside Picnic, the novel which my second favorite film, Stalker, is based off of. THEY ARE NOTHING ALIKE. Well, just a little alike. But still. I wanted to write a big huge thing about it, but I dunno. It was just a mediocre novel, and the film is so much better. Here, have a gander at it:

-With my iPod dead, I am stuck with the radio in my car. I have learned that grunge is possibly making a comeback, what with Soundgarden back together and Alice in Chains putting new stuff out with their new singer. Pearl Jam is still inexplicably popular, and the rest is just a gray smear of mediocrity and angst. Except for Avenged Sevenfold and the occasional classic like Possum Kingdom by the Toadies.

-The power supply to my Wii is dead, too, due to a lightning strike. Which blows.

-One day I thumbnailed 22 pages of Endseekers. Progress!

-Reading a novel by Rick Moody called the Four Fingers of Death. It's the novelization of a fictional remake of the Crawling Hand in the year 2025 and it is just...wild. Zero gravity gay sex scene, anyone?

-Went to Gatlinburg yesterday to see the penguins at the Ripley's Aquarium. Didn't get any clear shots of them, but I DID get this lovely shot of a cuttlefish. You know, the real-life spawn of Cthulhu! Also got Dr Pepper flavored barbecue sauce, which will either be totally awesome or terrible. And I made my annual trip to the beef jerky outlet for my favorite barbecue-flavored alligator jerky. And rock candy. Don't look at me like that!

Hurm. That's it. I'll try to keep updating more regularly, but don't count on it...

[Brett]

I have failed at being productive lately. But there's a lot in my head.

Scattering a lot of thoughts out into the wind here...

-I've read the final volume of Scott Pilgrim like, 3 times now. What strikes me the most about it is how it's the fastest of the volumes, the plot just zooms along as bombs are dropped and loose ends are tied. I also love how the Osamu Tezuka influence that was creeping in around volumes 4 and 5 is in full force here, with a bit of Go Nagai there when Scott goes after Gideon in subspace. Those two are like the Will Eisner and Jack Kirby of manga, man.

-Bought Gamer on Sunday and watched it last night. It got crap reviews, probably rightfully so, but it blew my mind and I loved every adrenaline-drenched second of it. Especially the real-life version of Second Life, Michael C. Hall being awesome, and just the decadent weirdness of it all.

-Also finally bought and read the Deadbeat, written and illustrated by Jeremy Massie, and found it heartwrenching. It's incredibly good, very well done. And I work with the dude!

-Tonight I watched a 1973 Japanese animated arthouse film thing called Belladonna of Sadness, after reading about it on Coilhouse. I watched it without subtitles. Very beautiful, especially the watercolors, and there's a huge Gustav Klimt influence, as well as Aubrey Beardsley and other art nouveau folks, but about halfway through it's like the animators took acid and started drawing porn filtered through the Yellow Submarine. Not that I understood the plot very much before this kicked in, but afterwards I was just supremely lost and uncomfortable. I want to watch it again, just not alone, but I doubt anyone I know would be mad enough to watch it with me, especially after seeing the trailer.

-Finishing up the inking of a two-page comic about David and I encountering this guy we graduated with in Wal Mart one night that we met up after work last week. Not sure I'm getting across with it what I wanted to get across, and heck, I'm not sure if there's any real MEANING to any of it, but you know, it's keeping me in practice. Sort of.

-My friends are going to see Patton Oswalt live tomorrow in Asheville, but I must work. LAME.

On that note, I should go to bed. GOODNIGHT.

[Brett]

“Time to slowly, painfully bring yourself back into consciousness.”

Forgive me if I seem distracted. I’m watching Videodrome as I type this, and I’m not sure combining David Cronenberg with Jack Kirby is the greatest idea.

Saturday was Rob-Con, the local comic convention put together by Rob, owner of Mountain Empire Comics, which I’ve been going to for years now. I always find good stuff there, even if it is a tiny little one-day event. I didn’t stay too long this year, because in under half an hour I managed to find the motherload: A stack of issues of Heavy Metal and Epic Magazine, which was Marvel’s short-lived answer to Heavy Metal.

But the real gem, the find that had me buzzing with excitement was something I never thought I’d come across: Jack Kirby’s oversized comic adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Think about it! One of the greatest science fiction films of all time, adapted by one of the greatest comic artists of all time! Can you fathom that?

As I steadily dive deeper and deeper into comics, I am growing more and more into Jack Kirby and everything he does. I start seeing his influences everywhere. Of course, the great Warren Ellis does a better job than I ever could of exploring and explaining this, as he did in his Bleeding Cool column, Do Anything: Thoughts on Comics and Things. No one created like Kirby did. No one drew like him, and to this day no one draws like him, though there are artists who get damn close, like Paul Pope, John Romita Jr, and others. But still. He was the king for a reason.

His adaptation of 2001, though, is…interesting. Especially when you consider that Kirby’s writing is…not quite the best. Overblown, like Stan Lee, but not as um, skillful. But still, it’s not exactly suited for adapting something as abstract as 2001. Stanley Kubrick’s cold, intellectual style does not match Kirby’s vicious, bombastic energy. Why Kirby would watch 2001 and think, “this would make a GREAT comic done in the Marvel style!” is beyond me.



But still, comparing and contrasting. One of the biggest differences in the two is in how the story is conveyed. There is more than twice as much dialogue in the comic as there is in the film, as well as a ton of narration, explaining everything that happens. Kind of goes against Kubrick’s purpose with the film in leaving it mostly up the viewer’s interpretation, doesn’t it? And of course, the visuals. Kubrick’s vision was austere, clean, the Discovery I set white and clean, sterile. Kirby’s vision is much more colorful, bright, crackling, kinetic. The monolith, smooth, solid, alien, in the film, is craggy, cracked, and old when rendered by Kirby. And yet, the most visual part of the film, Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite, is visually the weakest part in the comic. In other words, while it tells roughly the same story, the comic adaptation is almost the complete opposite of the film. That’s what makes it so damn fascinating. It’s also just damn weird that this was made EIGHT YEARS after the film was released…

…And there’s the part where the guy shoves the video cassette into James Woods stomach-opening. I knew trying to type this while watching Videodrome wasn’t the best idea.

[Brett]