PlasmaFire.org

Other than trying out the “utilitarian” cargo ships and aircraft below, I went for a more-detailed, “hard line” sketch style, with some preferential treatment toward my 4×0 (0.18mm) pen. Crosshatching is quite soothing when time allows for it, and if anything, it’s a great lesson on patience.

After rediscovering my Koh-I-Noor technical pens and their precision capabilities for the umpteenth time, it again resulted in two realizations: the need for line control is underrated, and taking maintenance for granted is a risky prospect.

Bipedal mecha everywhere!

A number of months have passed since my last full-time job, and seeing that I’m still hunting for a long-term solution, it’s certainly good to remain productive in order to prevent mental stagnation. Overall, I’m very thankful to God, my family, my friends, and even strangers for the blessings and new adventures I’ve gone through even though most available time is spent within my hometown. SolidWorks World 2012 at San Diego last month was a grand time, but I knew that I had to return home in order to accompany my family before time is surely up.

Over the past few days, I’ve thought about starting something simultaneously old and new: a desire to draw more often, and a wish to tell small stories in the process as well. So today, I’m launching a sketch series from the black book I frequently carry around, and in the future, sometimes from my drafting table or computer. These are little bits and pieces of my imagination and thought processes for you to mull over, be they fictional characters and environments, or real-world engineering concepts. Such scans and images will not be posted on my deviantART page unless they’re in compilation form, so if you’re watching my blog, I welcome you to be a part of this.

Self-improvement and occasional humor aside, I hope that in some way, I can reveal what rolls through my mind during impromptu sessions as well as explain why Jesus Christ has been so transformative in my life. Perhaps it’ll help breathe more life into the work in progress known as “Journeys“, but even if it doesn’t, I look forward to sharing with and learning from you.

“Don’t touch the live wires,” he said. But the other did anyway.

…isn’t even related to my major, which again begs the question of why so many of us have split interests between multiple passions. For the past two weeks, myself and the rest of ART 220 have been working feverishly on our last and biggest assignment, a multi-figural composition on any mediums and methods of choice. So…I chose to do a 40″ x 30″ drawing of giant robots and a pilot in a cavernous underground base, titled “Hangar A-1.” Much more technical information and a short fictional description are on the related deviantART post here.

With the piece due yesterday, my in-class critique went off without a hitch. Slightly surprising, though, was that almost no one gave me open advice about what to revise (compared to almost every other student before me, who on average received 3-5 strings of improvement commentary); sure, the technical parts have their presence, but there’s still a lot I see that isn’t quite right. Joe Sherman, who isn’t even in the class (yet?), suggested that I should add in more features and textures to exemplify the dilapidated, dark environment the ‘bots are searching through, but it was already obvious that time wasn’t enough. Honestly, I still need a lot of practice drawing human anatomy, environments, and internal mecha parts, and I ought to rework this project some day so it truly reflects the gritty mood it was originally meant to show.

In the midst of final projects and essays…I still gotta find time to draw and write for enjoyment. Here are a couple of quick GIMP 2.6 mech sketches for concept work.

Concepts, as in ideas for a story titled “Journeys” that I’ve been planning to write and illustrate in the past few months. More information is available via the Visual Fiction link in the top navigation bar.