Normal alarm clocks don't work on me. I tried but I'm a deep sleeper. It stinks practically everyone in my family has a biological clock that wakes up naturally. Sadly I didn't get that and left in a darkened room all day or night I can sleep. I can even beat the crazy alarm clock which requires one to press a sequence of buttons that dance around the screen to deactivate. Which I can punch with no problem. Guess gamer mode in my sleep.

There are alarms clocks that have wheels or require you to shoot a target. In shooter games I am a sniper. An advantage perhaps. It's gamer mode is activated also in deep sleep. Back to the main point this week I discovered the puzzle alarm clock it works better than  regular alarm clock. Makes one do a puzzle to deactivate the alarm. One of the settings that is currently working is the ticking time bomb. It ticks and then it makes an explosion. That definitely wakes me up and pisses me off. The only downside is to totally deactivate it is to simply turn it off.

This is essentially practically every morning



Back in school I was known to sleep in class for long periods at a time. Either from 20 to 50 minutes at a time without being caught. Even sitting in the front row of the strictest teacher's classes. I was so good that the person sitting next to me didn't know. I had to adapt because when I was young I had such bad allergies that I had an inhaler and heavy medication that makes one really drowsy. After awhile it was a bad habit that I took till college. I never fell asleep when I transferred to the Academy of Art University though. More like I never got sleep.

Of course there had to be one teacher Mr. Viaiso who never fell for my antics. The first time he noticed me do it I was sitting toward the back of the class. He clapped his hands repeatedly and shouted like an idiot. After that incident I had lunch detention practically everyday for more than a week and was moved to the front of the class despite other seat changes.

Mind you this was Algebra first thing in the morning. First period. If a room is cold I'll go into hibernation mode. He was too good. In some instances I would just barely close my eyelids and Mr. V would appear right in front of me and snap his fingers in front of my eyes. I was really annoyed with him but hey I passed Algebra.

I took some brain test everyone was taking awhile back. Perhaps explains too much.

Sipag!!!!

About every 2 years I go through this phase I feel my work is getting to be in a little stagnant. I get too comfortable. I like to grow as an artist. I need and have to improve, step it up a notch in particular areas. Usually I'll pull up my recent successes and disappointments and thoroughly analyze which habits I need to drop and which to maintain and things to learn.

One aspect I notice in my work I'm a little afraid to add value to my figure drawings. Sometimes I do it but most of the time not. To me it can be a little bland recreating the same thing. I feel I have the line quality and sensitivity down but needs more ooopmh.

I feel excited to have a new direction to go in. So expect more effort and new twists to things.

This list consists of

+I suck at combining environments and figures in one piece. Its either one or the other.
+Cut out distractions and stay in focus state longer.
+Add value to line drawings.
/After awhile I get annoyed if the figure model is constantly a pretty girl. I like to draw a variety of people. Sometimes I quit going or take breaks if the model is always the same type. I annoy my mentor sometimes but he got the point when I told him the last time I had done this. Not sure if its a plus or minus.




This was about 2 years ago as well from my first blog
             "Armed with a sketchbook, Pencil, and a cup of Coffee."

The moon thing seems a but dumb the main point is what I hope to do.


One year my goal was anatomy and another dynamic poses. I love depicting crazy fight sequences  in dynamic angles from my imagination.

This was like in January 2012 when apparently the world was going to end Again. The slump part was about a long break 4-6 months of not doing digital art. I starting feeling and getting symptoms of carpal tunnel. Which was a sign of quit doing what I was doing. I'll talk about proper posture sometime later.

Back 4 years ago I received the most heart wrenching honest critique. Someone once said all my characters were terribly short. To be honest it's embarrassing but I cried for like 2 days. I was going to be 18 in a few months and I was doing that. Sad. When I dried my eyes I realized this dude was right. This was bone-crushing but this improved my work drastically. No longer were my figures were short but there was variety and unless it was intended they were made short.





As I was told in Tagalog one time this dude exclaimed Sipag! After showing my sketchbook about a week's worth. Sipag means to be diligent and hardworking. 

Good Morning & Happy late 4th of July?

 Cheers.

Normally I don't watch fireworks and haven't watched them in years. I simply avoid them. But I did watch some this time around. I went outside and I got nostalgic. I remembered some things I had forgotten and for some events I've re-experienced multiple flashbacks. Strange.  I remembered the real reason why I stay home on this holiday. Sometimes I wish I didn't have a good memory.

Anyway one of the things I've thought of was Forseen Tranquility. Forseen Tranquility is the name of the composition notebook I owned for over 10 years. Beat up and stuff.

I remember the day I got it. It was a February 14th and it was around the time my family and I moved back to the States. We were at the BX something made me gravitate toward a composition book. I had always kept it with me despite being teased and being the creepy kid with a notebook. Kind of like DeathNote?

Nah. Not that creepy. 

This type of creepy. L. Seriously just kidding. Moving on.


Originally it was named Spider's Web knot or something but my sister convinced me otherwise to name it something else.She mentioned tranquility and I had no idea as a 12-year-old what that meant but it sounded cool otherwise. But speaking from the future my life has been relatively peaceful compared to what it had been at that time.

First drawing I did in that book. Haven't redone this character in a long time. Its a boring character.

My main point is points of progress. Every time I looked back at seen improvement and I've a long way. Some of my acquaintances from back in middle school can recall the days I lugged around a composition book and quite simply sucked. And some of these people don't even want to see me now. When I started going to the Academy of Art University I lost a lot of (fake) friends. C'est la vie.

The different stages and progress points  and the ones I can recall are:

The black composition phase- For some time I only drew in composition books and was terribly shy in showing anything it was like a secret diary or observation journal. Did this until high school until I got into the advanced class.

The cheap sketchbook phase-I saw other advanced art students with the cheap brown sketchbook with the hand drawing then. But when I moved it was really hard to find this one so I transitioned to...

The Hardbound
Looks like a regular hardcover book. Somewhat like my head banner. Kind of gives a homage to the composition book days.

At some point I stopped naming each sketchbook, but rather right wrote an inspirational quote inside. Which I still do. I'm kind of bummed that in certain sketchbooks I've stopped writing the dates. Of start and completion. Oh well.

Sometimes it helps when imaging and creating an image to come up with a fancy title, catchy pun or just a simple string of words. So almost everyone had a theme and a name. To help out with the creative process and flow.

 Pop quiz what is that scribble on the bottom of the page?
Guessss

I forgot what it was but my fingers remembered.


Its this


I was playing this at the time.

It was tough reinventing this. First off I never envisioned this with color. And most of the design aspects were impractical. Side by side 2003isn &2013ish. It was fun and a labor of agony.Have to do it again sometimes. Its a bench mark to see how much I can recreate but maintain the same essence and persona.

This is post #25. I never thought I would get this far. Or had anything interesting to say. Some things I find ordinary to me but is extraordinary for someone else once I share something. Improvement doesn't come overnight it takes years of struggle that it hurts so much to suck. And practice is the only remedy 

Peace. & Thank you :]

-K