Wonder Woman and Disney

The Disney trip is only months away! We're somewhere in the 40-50% range in saving up for the trip! And we're purchasing our tickets this month. If I had more time off, I'd go see Inception, but alas, I had the opportunity to hang out with one of my co-workers and his family to see Despicable Me.

My parents visited last week, and so we were treated to dinner, and in return we took them to this amazing place that serves fresh, custom doughnuts on the island.
Aside from all this, not much to report. We're losing one of the hostesses, but training two more. So hopefully me and Nicole will have some free time together soon. Nicole's been superbusy training, doing admin work, pulling longer shifts, etc. to get her vacation pay. I've just been trying to stimulate myself inbetween work, sleep and finding a good time to eat.

I haven't posted for a while because I always to leave new artwork, and I have to be honest; I didn't draw much this month. Finally I popped a good Wonder Woman drawing and had the time to color it. The drawing took maybe 2-3 hrs to draw because I had no reference and kept changing her outfit and hands. Coloring usually takes me 1-3 hrs, depending on my mood. I've found that I really enjoy coloring, and I hope I can learn some better techniques.

Anyway, here ya go.

Disney & things

Not much to say except we're a quarter of the way to finishing our Disney Fund! Life is good, I'm still waiting for our hospital bill to come, we have a friend visiting this week for a few days. Been doing research on classics and world history. Thinking about maybe doing an ongoing history webcomic or something. Don't know how I could ever top or even get to the level of Kate Beaton.

Here's a Metal Gear Solid fanart for ya guys.

Back from NC

Man, has it really been a month since I last posted?

Well, the big news is that we spent a week with my parents in NC. We attended a traveling Broadway showing of Wicked, which blew Dad away. Mom and my sister Kelli thought it was too long for their attention spans, so I guess you can't please everyone. Nikki thought the actress playing G(a)linda was better than the one we saw in New York. I visited high school friends, and in the process lost my voice that week. Got to see both "Date Night" and "Kick Ass." Tina Fey and Steve Carrel's movie was cute and definitely had its moments, but I was surprised by how much I liked "Kick Ass." Now I'm going to have to read the trade. Oh, and I did see "Iron Man 2," which of course was awesome, but not as much as the first. It was good to see everyone and eat lots of good food, but now we're back and need money. We're trying to pay off my hospital bills (over $1000 for a doctor to rub on some antiseptic and start stapling away on my head), save on food costs, and *drum roll please* save up for a trip to Disney World! WHOOOOO!! We plan on going the first or second week of December. It'll be between the fall and the Christmas crowds, but still close enough to Christmas as they'll have the lights up. Also, Nikki's excited that they're going to bring back Captain EO. We're also going to spend a day at Islands of Adventure to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Let's see . . . I've been learning some Italian in the meantime, as well as trying to read, understand, and appreciate the literature classics again. Nikki bought a DVD shelf so we can move our movies out of the bookshelf to make room for all the graphic novels we now own. One of the few friends we have left in Savannah is leaving, but we're trying to hang out more with our coworkers.A very androgynous Elphaba with some TF2 characters. Note the drawings on the back side of the sketchbook bleeding through. What can I say? I don't like to waste paper.

Did some anatomy drawings while watching Blade Runner. One thing led to another.

Did a colored piece of Dead or Alive 2, a very cheesecake-y fighter game I used to own.

I love Mondays

My wife took out my staples on her own with a special tool. No, it didn't hurt and it took about a minute to do. So yay for saving money! Still dreading the hospital bill, as it hasn't come in the mail yet. Come to think of it, neither has our census form. Hmmm...

Both of us were able to get the last two Mondays off work, so we used our rare time together to go to the Columbia Zoo last week and Charleston to meet Nikki's parents this week as kind of a anniversary collaboration (our anniversaries are just a week apart).

EDIT: I wrote practically five pages of info on our trips, only to find out after hitting "Submit" that I had been logged out and nothing was saved. So here's the short version.

The Columbia Zoo
- Flamingos smell
- Baboons make horrible fathers
- I'd hate to be a toucan living at the zoo (I mean, how many times a day are you going to hear something related to Froot Loops before you go stark-raving mad?)
- I saw a lemur I thought was dead. It looked like this.- I saw a penguin who acted like he was going to take on everyone at the zoo. He was my favorite. He looked like this.- I'd hate to work at the zoo.

Charleston
- Good times with father-in-law
- Great pizza
- Great dinner w/ swordfish

Last weekend had awesome SCAD grad pop over to visit during Editor's Day.

That weekend, I drew these!

Ouch

Last week, Nikki and I did our taxes at H&R Block. Luckily, our tax returns ended up to be a substantial amount. Enough to cover the car repair payments, with some left over that we could go out and buy a sofa (so we can throw out our broken futon).

Well, yesterday kind of nulled that. I bent down to grab some cleaning supplies from the bathroom sink, and as I stood up (fairly quickly) my head caught the edge of our glass medicine cabinet. I nailed the corner of it on the top right side of my scalp. I thought I had just had a good bump on the head until I discovered my hand holding my head was covered in blood. Thank God Nikki was there because stupid me would have taken a shower, slapped on a bandage, and gone about my day. We called Nikki's father who is a neuroradiologist, and he said I'll need some stitches as the cut was about an inch long and a fairly deep one at that. We get to the hospital and three hours later, I have five shiny staples in my head. I thought they would shave my head, but I guess not (I'm kinda grateful as it would be quite humbling to host at a restaurant with this bald, metallic spot on top of my head).(I'll spare you the pre-stapled cut picture)

My wife was panicked and having a bit of an anxiety attack until she met up with me again in my hospital room. Meanwhile, my biggest worry was money and if the restaurant would hold up with just one hostess on a busy night. Honestly, it could be worse. I briefly shared the room with a man who had barely missed being killed by a slab of marble falling off a truck and into his car. You just never know when something will happen. You can be driving back from a haircut, or in my case, trying to clean the bathroom.

Now here's some sketches for you.

Things might be looking up now :)

I had the fortune of finding my cousin on linkedin, who works for an architecture firm in Portland, OR. I also grabbed some contacts from fellow SCAD alumni, so now I'm slowly getting the hang of networking. I'm really looking into doing something in the storytelling field, such as storyboarding. I think I'd have more fun collaborating with writers and artists in order to come up with an awesome story than producing concept art. At least not now. I feel my strong suit is storytelling with comedy and horror. I still need to work on my art skills.

Also, a local job position is opening up that I really want and can get. Most likely, I'll be taking a pay cut from less hours at the restaurant, but I'd rather work somewhere related to my field of interest.

Speaking of artwork, got a quickie for ya.

Art dump!

I called my dad today, and he asked why I hadn't updated recently. I honestly can't say why. I never have experienced an HR rep at a prospective company snapping at me when I called to check up on the application process. By this point, I had already had the interview and was told I would hear back from them in a week. By the next week, I had not heard anything, so I called to check. I got a quick "We'll call you." And that was it.

Luckily, my hours have picked back up at the restaurant. Unfortunately, my wife's hours have picked up as well, and she's being stretched thin by her two jobs (and our one car). So we're making good money this month, but it's an hour commute roundtrip to the restaurant (and it's not uncommon that we have to make at least two trips per day). I guess it helps that our local comic store has been hit with hard times, and so we're not spending half our paychecks on Fables or Batman issues.

My mother is trying out for a mini-triathlon this fall, and considering when it takes place (aside from my birthday) it will be a huge milestone for her because it will have been about a year since she's recovered from breast cancer. I'm very proud of my sister, as she's smart with finding a good guy to date, and starting on new activities she's passionate about, such as musical theater. She also just turned 17, and I believe she now has her driver's license. Before I went to college and moved in with my wife, she hadn't started highschool yet and I think she had just gotten her braces. How the time flies.

In two weeks, my wife and I are off to see a She + Him concert in Savannah (I think we're mostly seeing it so we can possibly meet Zooey). In late April, I'll be up in NC with my folks to see a traveling tour of Wicked, as well as catching up with old friends. It'll be a great week!

Don't want to leave you without some art, so here ya go!One of the contests for our art jam was to combine two characters from the 80s and/or 90s. Took Princess Peach from Mario Bros. and Lara Croft from Tomb Raider.

Cammy is just too fun to not draw.
Marth and Ike from the Fire Emblem series, but you can find both on the latest of the Smash Bros. series. Uh, and this is Jigglypuff as a carnivore.

Vega from the Street Fighter series. I took a cue from John K's animation school, and drew this in the same way I drew Zangief two posts previous to this one. I believe I will color it soon.

Perspective and proportion study with Mario!

A little Star Wars comic I came up with (and perhaps an explanation as to why Anakin chose the Dark Side).
Couldn't resist a little cheesecake.
Toad from the X-Men a la 1960s era. Or at least how I imagine him (without the goofy costume).