anhedonia blue

Anhedonia Blue First Tasty Teaser

2009-06-09T01:57:00.001-07:00

Finally things are on the Up and Up with Anhedonia! With TNPPress in it's own stable direction, where I don't have to man the boat alone as much anymore, I've finally had a chance to really sit and work hard not only on really strong conceptual art for this project! I've actually had an opportunity to start penciling in the first two pages of the comic this past week and am very please with where it is going artistically. I wont be giving any direct images of any of the pages (don't want to spoil the comic of course!), but now that things are moving, with 3 chapters (for the most part) written and the fact that production stages of art actually moving, i will be posting more often with better quality images. I hope to finally start giving everyone who is following this blog a better vision of the direction and style of this project too. Included with this post is a Desktop background Teaser for anyone who'd like to sport it on their computers while I'm actively working away to get the real thing going!

For now, i hope you enjoy the update and I'll see you back at Unconscious Ink [ui] until launch! [UI] will of course continue as scheduled, even when Anhedonia launches i will post new inklings weekly. Post may or may not decrease to once a week at that point though so that I don't get overloaded with TNP, UI and Anhedonia all at once!

Figure Study: Hands and Body

2009-03-29T20:22:00.000-07:00

Hands, Lips, movement; Three things that give me nightmares to think about relaying correctly on paper. It's interesting to see how lips can express so much emotion if drawn correctly, yet if you draw them even slightly wrong then the whole thing suddenly feels like a cartoon and you loose the effect of which you intended. This is inevitably going to play an important role with my characters due to the fact that when i envision them and their interaction between one another, even the slightest change in emotion due to what is said will play an important role in where the story is going. So it's super important to me that I will be able to reveal these things through that.

I guess I'll just lay it out there now. I am afraid that I will not be able to paint the picture from my mind directly to canvas without my current abilities getting in the way.

So what am i doing to get around this? Draw Draw Draw! Recently I got a copy of Poser 7 in hopes that i can use this as a supplementary tool to actually going to any life drawing classes for the time being. I'm hoping to have an update soon on how I am going about using it to help me draw my characters as well as a short tutorial on how to use it in the first place. I find that as an artist I have been learning something new everyday, and would love to show/help anyone else who probably is struggling on the same things I am. Anyway, I've only played with Poser for a little bit so far and it's already proving to be a tremendous help! My next update will more then likely be a Poser post.

Delays

2009-01-18T01:43:00.000-08:00

I must apologize for my lack of posts on here. My life has been so frantic, I moved to Seattle for close to half a year where i had to hold two jobs just to pay the rent, then had to move back to California to help out my family, and now I'm in a Design Communication Art Certificate program at UCLA; all in the last year and all reasons that I haven't had much time to work on this project at all! I have on the other hand been trying my hardest to at least get an unconscious ink out every Thursday (and possibly Tuesdays soon as well), so please come and check those out. On the upside of this whole being busy thing, i have at least been able to sit and sketch all the time on random pieces of paper or my sketch pads any chance i get. The the consistency of my posting [ui]'s is testament to that! I'm getting much better and the human figure, which is good since Anhedonia will be relying heavily on how well i can draw people but working on my inklings has really allowed me to explore the 'cartoonyness" of my art. That in mind, i felt i should give you guys at least a really goofy 'chibi' Eydis who can express the way that i feel at the moment about my progress on this project. Don't fret, i will have this project up and running at some point, and i promise to post here as much as possible in regards to that.

a world of magic

2008-11-24T22:42:00.000-08:00

Something, I've sort of been keeping under wraps while i've been developing Anhedonia Blue is the fact that the world it takes place in has an aspect to it in which magic exists. This has been the center focus of all my sketches recently (that i haven't been posting), and the primary reason why I've been indulging myself so far into research; primarily for accuracy of what we perceive to be magic, how (if) it works, why (if) it works, etc. Reading books about witch craft...is interesting? I didn't know people truly believed magic is real till i opened up these books! I don't really want to go to far in depth with this idea at the moment, now that its out there in the open i can start posting practice sketches of magic since its been giving me one hell of a struggle over the past few months.

Every artist who draws magic draws it differently. I've been flipping through several comic books, checking people's Deviant Art accounts, searching through google images, etc see the different ways people draw spells. It's crazy how different we all picture it to be. Knowing that, I've been having a bit more fun just 'playing with fire' and seeing what i come up with. I wasn't really intending to post a picture of magic just yet, but i had to do an assignment for class the other day entirely in ink/inkwash, so i figured I'd play with it on Eydis to see what i could come up with. This took me a few hours before class... it feels a bit rushed, but for how quickly i put it together i was rather proud of it so i thought I'd share it with you all along with my quick update on whats going on with this project.

desolate city - building a setting

2008-10-24T00:49:00.001-07:00

One thing that I am actively working and struggling with, but realizing more and more is very important, is that a strong setting will strengthen your work. The backdrop of where a character is located can give the reader a more accurate feel of the setting and mood as well as give a stronger sense of reality. Knowing this I've undergone a study in land/cityscapes. Recently I've been spending a lot of time staring at the city, taking pictures, and coming home to making an attempt to replicate it. This picture above is an example of one of the sketches i did of Eydis interacting with the environment.

Interesting side note, in doing these styled character/example sheets I'm beggining to get a sense of asthetic that i may attempt in the novel. Though i still dont have a set color scheme, I've realized something developing in my style. Working in pencil seems to give a looseness that i've grown fond of lately, unlike most of my previous work. This gives it a little less of a cartoony feel which really is ideal for this project. Talking with ali, tossing ideas back and forth, I've come to realize this is going whole concept start to finish is going to take several years, but it will be several years of growth and development; all of which you will be a part of along the way.

Character Sheet 1: Eydis (early sketches)

2008-10-11T02:18:00.000-07:00

Ok, well I've been hiding as much about this comic concept as i possibly could in the past year because i want it to be perfect before i release it. Regardless i feel its time to start showing some of the concepts along the way... before i burst. Over all I'm hoping these posts will give me a bit more motivation to keep drawing and writing this story over the next year because seeing your stuff on the web verses scratch papers around your room really makes a big difference. If I'm not sketching I've pretty much dedicated the rest of my free time to researching different ideas for the comic, because i don't want them to be inaccurate. Also alot of the reason I'm back in school is to inhance the quality of my art, because of that this will also a blog about the developement artistic skill as i continue to create. Anyway, here's the first character sheet/concept sketch I've ever posted of any of my original characters. This is Eydis (still no last name), she is the main character of Anhedonia, which means I've been drawing her ALOT... and you will learn to either love or hate her by the time this whole thing is over.

Most of my life I've drawn women, but i've never been good at certain parts of the human figure. For instance, feet and hands have always been a struggle for me... so that means I'll be working on that a lot too. Overall on this sketch im happy with the feet though... I'm still crap at them. Shes still under development, but overall this is the basic feel of the way she's going to look. She has blond hair, blue eyes, a soft sweet look but she will go alot deeper then just a cute early twenties girl with no personality, i promise.

Ok back to the drawing board.

A Change in this blog

2008-05-24T11:58:00.000-07:00

For all posts related to Unconscious Ink and my other projects as well as my everyday life I will be using: http://joenisnorac.livejournal.com

Anything Related to Anhedonia Blue from here on out will be posted here!

excitement!

2008-05-21T02:34:00.000-07:00

we'll i was bored tonight.. i sketched out nine new [ui]'s! i may or may not put them all into ink.. but ill probably start inking them tomorrow. So i hope you all come over to unconscious ink Thursday I'll have a new one up!

exploration

2008-05-16T02:58:00.000-07:00

so i was playing around with Photoshop last night before i posted [ui] #8 "i'm sad that i'm flying" and i was really please with it.. so i decided to go back and play around with #7 "all alone"... the out come was kinda cool.. i'm almost considering replacing it for this.. any thoughts?

the break and the birth

2008-05-14T03:50:00.000-07:00

Well it's as good as official at this point. If you go to Reeder Rabbit theres an announcement basically telling the world that i am on break... but i link off to Unconscious Ink and The Noir Project in REALLY BIG words to hopefully pull some of that traffic over to whats gonna be my main focus in the next few months, [ui] inklings. I'm really excited about this transition and I've already drawn out a few of the up coming UI's so that i will be ahead. Unlike Reeder which i felt i could never keep up with, i will definitely be posting every Thursday at midnight and possibly more then that per week (but i don't know for sure about that yet). After working on Ali's website and making it look really clean, I decided to fiddle around with the Unconscious Ink's site a bit. Ideally this is also my art portfolio for future references, and potential clients so i can pick up some freelance work. I currently haven't posted any art yet (most everything is here in the blog), but i plan to over the summer at some point since i should have a bit more free time. For now i think the site looks good, and I'm excited about how things are turning out right now. Any feed back you can give me would be appreaciated; i fixed most of the noticeable glitches, but if u see others tell me. Thank for the support while i go through this non-Reeder comic transition! :D

retirement

2008-05-08T03:34:00.001-07:00

i've really deeply been considering retiring Reeder Rabbit for good. I'm not sure tho, i mean worked really hard getting it to be something and its just not what im happy with. That doesn't mean im done with art or anything like that of course! I just posted a new UI tonight and ive been doodling a lot again. I stopped doing Unconscious Inks in the first place because doing them purely in Photoshop took hours. As i'm learning alot about different mediums i'm finding that i can do traditional pieces a lot faster, and I'm realitively please with the results. I posted about this in the forums but i didn't get alot of responses. What do other people think about this idea? Over all I feel like id be happier just doing a few creative illustrations a week which keep my creative juices going and run the noir project while i do this. I may bring reeder back at some point,but not till im satisfied with what im doing artistically. I may even just do another concept entirely once i get better at drawing. peace.

3 piece love & death

2008-04-20T17:37:00.000-07:00

These are taken from photographs i took about a year ago. I printed them out at a lower quality then traced out the most distinct areas. From there i transposed them back to a canvas board and painted them in three different color schemes. The first is gray scaled with red accents, the next is primary colors, and finally the one of Cassie is a mono-chrome blue. I chose the colors for specific reasons:

The Grayscale is to dull out who died, which accents the intensity of the red; the blood is what was important to me in this painting. It symbolizes the passion of life and furthermore that of death; the idea i had while painting this was something along the lines that we all love, and we all have a passion for what we love, and often we will go to the extent of death (or risk of death) to fight for that love. This is why i wanted the red to stand out so much.

The primary colors were chosen to give it more of a comic-classic feel. idk what about the primary colors do this but it really made me think more of Cowboy Bebop; which the picture inspiration came from.

Finally the monochrome blue just gives a feel of depression. First off, the colors reminded me of her because she has this dark melancholy quality to her that i love already. On top of that the colors are rather symbolic for our relationship at the time when we were together. It was a weird period, i would assume in both of our lives, when we both moved up north. I was really depressed about a lot of what was going on in my life and in effect i was hurting her. The reason i added this to the other two in the collect was for this very reason. A large part of me died during that time. I'm in now way saying that she was the cause of this, but we were both in a way the catalyst of which pushed major changes in each other while we went through this. We both pulled the trigger on each other, and the melancholy i left her with and the death of a part of me was the result of that time of our lives.

Things are good now. :D

(i think im gonna do more touch ups on the cassie painting,, i dont feel its done yet)

constant revision

2008-04-10T03:10:00.000-07:00

as some people may know ive just not been happy with reeder at all. im bored of it an wanted to switch things up. I have alot of limitations with working only on a tablet that i dont like. I draw better when its by hand on paper. In class for the last project the teacher suggested i try a specific style of illustrating for it.. at first i wasn't to thrilled but i gave it a shot and i LOVE the look of it... im thinking about doing reeders like this now.. I scanned an example of what I'm thinking about. Any opinions?

its very manga styled, which i like since the character designs are already anime influenced. i like that its hand drawn, traditional work, and it alot faster for me to do, honestly...which means MORE REEDER'S! well see...

logos and names

2008-04-04T11:50:00.000-07:00

just a few graphics I'm playing with.

for those who think macs are gods

2008-03-28T11:19:00.000-07:00

It's always funny to me when people think that Mac's are Gods gifts to the technology mess already in place, which i alluded to in comic 59. I'm honestly indifferent about either computer, they both suck... but i digress. I wanted to share with people yet another case that even Gods can be be shot down in 2minutes flat. Mac hacked!. The two PC computers were not hacked. Sorry Mac.

been vinyl lovin'

2008-03-28T01:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been rather busy. I went to San Fransisco to take a little vacation with Ana for a few days and checked out the Gallery 1988 Exhibit, which was pretty awesome. Kathie Olivas is now one of my favorite artist for sure! She does paintings on canvas as well as vinyl; i love any artist that explores Vinyl. :D While i was up there i stopped by Kid Robot in Haight and bought a few little figures. Hated them both... I decided to paint over one of them, which proved to be a rather huge pain in the ass. I'd really like to explore the art of working with vinyl but i CAN'T find any information on it online. After looking around on the internet for a while i found a few ways to do it... but don't feel like i was as successful at it as i was hoping :( Heres what came out:

(Coney in Acrylics on Vinyl Dunny)

After seeing Andrew Bell's exhibit in LA last weekend, I've REALLY wanted to get better at painting in general. I'm currently working on a painting that I'll probably post in the next few weeks, that i've been slaving over the past few days.

Anyway, as far as vinyl goes... I'm still stumped on how to produce/paint my own figures... i guess i will learn over time.

pink hell

2008-03-11T21:19:00.000-07:00

Again as i sit in class i can't focus on the assignment... taking the colors of red and white i painted was feeling. This photo doesn't do this piece justice and I'm not a huge fan of pink but i really liked the way it turned out all the same.

obama and the youth of which he appeals

2008-03-10T22:13:00.001-07:00

So the time for us to vote is approaching! This year with the possibility of a black man or a white woman being our next President, which will be a very historic moment in our nation, we are going to have to make some very educated choices. Or are we?

I remember when Bush was running against Gorg what i heard people our age bitch about was simply this: He's talks like a robot, I don't want a robot running our country. So people voted Bush... which we were stuck with for 8 year. Of course by the end everyone hated him and can't wait till the moment he leaves. Then there was the situation in California when we need a new Governor. Who one? We'll of course, the movie star; the one we could call the Governator. It's funny to me why we elect who we elect, and more so why we elect them. For young people like me it seems to be the names who are most known (with out knowning much about them) and superficial judgments are what make the decisions.

Who do i think is gonna win? I don't thing the republicans have a chance.. not with Bush being so hated so much at this moment. And of course if we vote a democrat we get to witness history! So i believe that the un-educated youth will have another say in who gets elected as we rush in to make a change with our non thought out votes!

Basically thats the point of this editorial; its a commentary on this fact (or my opinion rather). Obama, who appeals to the youth stand forward in front a faceless, generally unrecognized group of young people.

ps... i need some advice on something! I have a project idea...

gray scale study

2008-03-06T21:58:00.000-08:00

i have to do a editorial about something going on in the world recently. i have an idea but i wanted to practice working in grayscale before i do it... so hes what i came up with after playing around for about an hour.

now that i can see that i can draw like this, it makes me want to do a more serious comic. Just don't know what i'd do.

orange, blue & green; who knew.

2008-03-06T00:47:00.000-08:00

Well i rushed this out but i sorta liked the outcome. It's four different designs with 3 simple shapes done in four or 5 different basic colors.

understanding

2008-03-04T00:08:00.000-08:00

So as i play more and more with illustrator i learned something. I wanted to "remaster" the older comics. What i did was print them, trace them, scan them, vectorize them, and bam. They look 1000x's better. I've done it to about the first six comics. I'm pretty thrilled about the idea that i can go back to my un-editable mess ups (due to the fact that i no longer have the files) and fix them!

During this process i realized this my be a more efficient way to get my comics in the future done. So far it seems to be that this will be the way that i will do it but my one problem lies in the nature of fill tools. I every line (since they were traced) was black.. so this means that i couldn't differentiate from the rabbits to the outlines of the comics, etc. I found a sloppy way around it (which I'm super pro at doing) but i quickly came to an understanding about something. You know how in Movie Production sometimes they put actors in front of a blue or green screen so that they can later ad CG? WELL, if i were to apply that same concept to fill tools i can now do the following. Hand draw the comics (which I'm rather fast at)and edit and play around with them on paper, then trace the rabbits in lets say gray marker, then the borders in black, objects in red (or varying color depending on whether these objects touch or not), and talk bubbles in blue. Problem at that point solved! I can then fill eveything thing else in with in moments with no pixels in the images. If this is true then i should have a very streamlined way to go about drawing. I was never quite able to figure out the way Jeph Jacques does his drawing completely in photoshop.. but i think this way will be just as efficient! lets hope so!

thinking on this a moment more i can probably also draw the shadows in a different pen as well. then i could shade them in too! This should be amazing if it works.

katie in vector

2008-02-29T13:58:00.000-08:00

Well... I'm kind of annoyed. i spent the last hour or so designing Katie on Adobe Illustrator, i was pretty happy with it until the teacher started talking about live tracing images. Live tracing is a technique where you can draw your pictures on paper, scan them, then use illustrator to vectorize your drawing! WHICH WOULD HAVE SAVED ME HOURS OF TIME!! >.< design center tutorial Oh well, i learned alot about illustrator from doing this, so i guess there is a good side to it but i thought I'd post the first draft of Katie for now.

love music

2008-02-28T20:59:00.001-08:00

Well here it is. It looks nicer to me in the photograph then in real life, but it definitely portrays what i wanted it to regardless. I'm gonna probably repaint over this when i get it back from the teacher and do the same thing. What i forgot to do what to paint the canvas white first, the paint the shapes over the white... i messed up a few times and cover it up with white paint.. which now looks like i got white out or something (very tacky) and tried to cover it up. I was really bummed out about that... especially when i realized i spilled paint over it and then had to touch it up! haha... oh well. It still looks pretty nice.

hope other people like it. i love the idea, i just need to redo it again later.

stressin'

2008-02-28T01:09:00.000-08:00

as the title of this blog alludes too, I'm starting to stress out. I forgot i had a project due tomorrow. I have to paint a design (kinda like that anchor one i posted) with black/white acrylic by 6pm tomorrow. The canvas is about 20x25 i believe... im not positive... thank god i already have a concept... but this means I'm gonna but WAY late tonight. >.<

naming her

2008-02-25T18:06:00.000-08:00

i was gonna keep this a secret for a while... but i changed my mind. I'm working on adding at least one character Reeder Rabbit. I will more then lately bring the turtle back in a few comics as well. Thing is I'm bad at names. I like the idea of having names mean something or at least represent something. In the case of the current two characters the rabbits names are both rabbit related. Reeder Rabbit and Coney Caron. So now i'm thinking about adding a girl rabbit, and like I said id like to bring the turtle back. Any name suggestions?

I figured the girls last name could be Conejo... all i've gotten so far is Katie Conejo... if anyone has ideas I might actually use em. thanks :D

reeder in vector

2008-02-25T00:18:00.000-08:00

So as i'm learning more about vector imaging i decided that the best way to go about the reeder comics from here on out is to do them as pixel free images. I've been playing around with it and so far for the most part i think that the rabbits look 10x better already! This is the first Reeder i've been working on. This up coming comic wont be in the new style (since ive already done it) but from that point on, most likely, i will be doing the comics like this:

winter anchor

2008-02-22T01:14:00.000-08:00

At first glance you may see a flower, or more likely because of the colors snow flakes against a black winter sky. This is not what was my initial intention with this concept. I started with an anchor, one simple anchor which i repeated several times into a full circle. i like the way it was looking so much that i decided to incorporate that into a repetitious design. Since repetition can be rather boring i offset the entire thing, pushing most of the weight to the top corner of the design to the top corner.

When the teacher told us we had to take a simple shape, fill it in and repeat it i was rather weary about the assignment but overall i ended up really liking the "anchor flake" that came out of this.. If we ever find a decent company to do shirts through i may take this design and incorporate it into a shirt. It would more then likely not be that same repetitive design.. i have a few ideas (if i do it)...but well see.

ink washin' experiment

2008-02-21T01:20:00.000-08:00

I really like black & white art; in particular black and white photography and paintings. Recently I've been learning how to use black ink pens. I've gotten rather tired of the way that ink pens would leave wierd lines that i didn't really like, if you look a few blogs back you can kind of see what I'm talking about. I decided to try a new technique called 'ink washing' .. which is basically taking black ink from a bottle and adding water it into it at varying degrees. For my class i need to do piece that deals with an astrological sign. I decided to do a Ram (since my sign is Aries) in Ink wash...

I didn't want to just jump into it so i practiced with a few different things... So heres a sample of what the ram might look like for the final project:

This is just some random girl that i drew..

the rabbit hole

2008-02-15T23:10:00.000-08:00

as many of you know the noir project for the time being has kinda gone on hold; cos of the fact that ali and austin are on break. Because of this i am the only active artist on the project. Ali and I talked about it for a while and we decided to make a forum linked to the main page to keep the site active for the time being. The forum is designed to allow people to discuss the comics as well as culture, politics and so on. If anyone is interested heres the link: http://thenoirproject.com/rabbithole/ come join in, i'd love for everyone to chat with me on there.

2 years and running

2008-02-10T23:10:00.000-08:00

Well, as of today Feb. 10, I've been drawing Reeder and Coney for a full two years! I wonder if they will last another two!? =P

i think i like computer graphics

2008-02-09T23:51:00.000-08:00

My first day of Computer Assisted Illustration started on Friday. It didn't turn out to be exactly what i thought the class was gonna be.. but i can see a potential for growth! In the first class i did these little graphics... i thought they were pretty neat.

frustration of knowledge (edit w/ scans)

2008-02-07T19:58:00.000-08:00

I love learning... but sometimes its frustrating and difficult. It even at times makes me want to quit.. but its not till i get to that point do i start to learn. Often i actually do give up for a small period of time and come back to it and have a handle on it.

This is whats frustrating me:

My projects are becoming more and more time consuming... and I'm never satisfied with the outcomes. Currently I've been working on this one point perspective graphite drawing, which is on a 18X24inch sheet of bristol board paper. It is a rough drawing of my room, which a super imposition of some of the little creatures I've been drawing lately. The room on paper barely fits the description of my room and and i realized lately that i know nothing about shading.. When i was younger i used to blow off any type of art teacher when they would talk (lesson learned there) and thought i had a good hold on it it... Well, turns out i don't. I found that cross hatching though is a really awesome way to shade. Up close it looks too textured and almost like you don't know how to shade.. but from a distance i'm actually falling in love with the way it looks! This is where the learning has started.. i've gone from hating everything about the shading and the way my room looks to slowly enjoying it.. but this project is still taking several pain staking hours!

Whats the most frustrating is that i lost my Stylus pen! I need it to draw the Reeders and UI... but i haven't been able to find it. I have a spare but i hate the tip; its very smooth and allows the pen to flow to easily across the screen.. BUT from this i've learned that i can use that tip to make very natural lines that aren't over thought. After being frustrated for about an hour of drawing the last reeder "Lessons with that guy Death" i found my extra tips.. i went back to the type i like.. but I'm still not too sure about the spare pen.. its bigger and bulkier. =/ Out of all things to lose did i really have to lose that pen? They cost like 80$'s to replace!

Here are some scans of my first 2D Design project:

When i first started this project i didn't think this was gonna turn out cool. In fact i don't really like the originals as much as these ones. Whats so special about these? We'll once i loaded them on the computer i was trying to enhance the blacks, but along the way i stumbled across the invert function. When i did this it pulled out the texture of the black in and made it look more interesting to me. The Drawing on the top was actually my favorite at first still i did this inversion thing. now i actually enjoy the bottom one a little bit more.

Though i have the originals in black ink, I'm considering making prints of these on higher quality paper and maybe framing them for my room. I'm not sure. The gray tones really seem to make this image more effective and would actually accent some of the crap i have in my room.

odd-ly-ness-less

2008-02-01T03:05:00.000-08:00

Yeah... so i was really frustrated today. Partly because of my resent lack of my recently lack of sleep (I'm sure its finally getting to me), but also because ever since i got my new computer I've been having a lot of little issues with Vista and its compatibility with things. Oddly, the latest issue I've had is that i can't use the 'pressure sensitivity' tool whenever my hard drive is plugged in; i only accidentally realized this was the case i unplugged my computer from the hard-drive to move to the other room. I'm really baffled as to why this is happening but either way it made it that much harder for me to get the new Reeder do "first-aid" done on time. It's real hard to try to run a more legit website when everything around you seems to want to prevent it! Never fear, i don't easily submit to the easy path; I'm not an "Adolf-quitler!" haha.

Anyway, in other news i finally got my first project from my 2D Design class back (i dont much care for it), and the teacher delayed the due date for the one i've been staying up doing at night the past few days! This means there will be some scan-age most likely tomorrow! So come back and look if you'd like.

the cute kiss

2008-01-30T03:33:00.000-08:00

I don't know about other people, but i am a huge Questionable Content fan. I've been reading this strip for about a year now and i've always really liked it. It will suck your life away if you ever read it! haha. Anyway i wanted to play around with the gradient tool on Photoshop (since i just kind of learned how to use it on the Coalition website) and since i felt rather bored of my Tim Sale background i made a few weeks ago so i made a Jeph Jacques one of Martin and Dora's first kiss. I always liked this comic particularly cos it reminds me of how ridiculously shy i can get around girls, especially when it comes to the first kiss. Marty's character sometimes reminds me of myself in that way. Also he says the wrong thing pretty much all the time. Heres a new desktop background for anyone who likes Questionable Content! :D

project projection

2008-01-28T17:09:00.000-08:00

My fear of judgment, my irrational idea that everyone was better then i was, and my unconscious beliefs that people would try to take what created away and make them their own - these are all things that stunted my growth artistically. I recently flipped through my old sketch pads to find that i was way better then i remembered. I was always so hard on myself when I'd draw, i misconstrued the concept of 'room for improvement' as an 'inherent failure'. It makes me said to think that i was really willing to give up a talent i was born with. Today in class when the teacher was talking about cross hatching, something i never did before (cause i thought it was stupid), i realized how rusty i am with drawing.. how if i would have kept it up how far along i could be today. This made me rather sad but i know better then to let such a thing bring me down, rather now i see it as what it is, room for improvement. I'm happier about this situation once i gave it thought and I'm now gonna start to absorb everything I've missed over the years I've been away from art. From here on out I'm dedicated to growth and enjoying what I'm doing on the way.

I've realized more and more that I need projects, i love them. Other then just working on The Noir Project/Reeder Rabbit/Unconscious ink... i decided that its time for me to just fill my days up with activities that keep my mind from wandering. Being idle is dangerous, it allows you to think too much about things that you shouldn't or wouldn't unless the time permitted. I have too many good things in my life to start thinking about the negatives that have come and gone through out the years. So now, on top of my school load I'm also helping two friends out with their projects.

Alek needed a better 'cleaner' website for his Coalition for a Green Glendale so i stepped in to help out. I've set up a basic design that he seems to like already; though i still plan to make some better graphics and clean it up a bit, i think it already looks a ton better already. Also, another friend of mine just approached me with the opportunity to work on something for his company. I've talked it through with him and Marc and it seems like Marc and i are gonna take up this project as well! :D He said this could look good for a resume, and maybe if i change majors i could even use it in my application for grad school. I'm gonna overall just be in charge of the graphic design and Marc with the programming, but still the fact that I'll be doing a project for company like that is pretty awesome!

Right now, i have no complaints about life.

In case you're interested here is the Site i'm working on for Alek: Coalition for a Green Glendale

harvard

2008-01-25T03:16:00.000-08:00

i want to go to Vericon. Randall Munroe, Jeph Jacques and Lois Lowry are all gonna be there! Too bad its at Harvard! >.<

windows defender defends...

2008-01-24T02:36:00.000-08:00

Windows defender defends against its worst enemy, itself! That right! Today when i tried using the old fonts for the reeder logo, i didn't have them anymore. After i re-downloaded them i tried installing them but Vista wouldn't let me. Apparently it hates itself for not having the fonts i needed. Because of this i had a real hard time with comic #55 Johnny in Depp, but i had a lot of fun doing it. I learned a few new things. For instance... I am flat out a bad speller.. So i did most of this one with a font i found online while looking for the old fonts. When i noticed the spelling errors on this issue (after i posted it) i just went back, spell checked it which corrected it with in seconds. If i draw the misspellings its a pain to correct cos i have to erase them and re-write them. Thats a major problem with some of the earlier comics.. first, i cant go back and fix them cos i no longer have the files and even if i did i would have to go back and edit over lined paper so spelling edits are hard. I swear one of these days i'll re-do all the original 30 something that are in the older style. (at least the first ten that i honestly just HATE!).

Luckily today i didn't have as many computer issues (other then the fonts). I have my new computer almost fully set up the way i wanted it, which is great. Also, i reformatted my old one and took it apart to clean out the fan, runs beautifully now! (minus the fact that it can't handle Adobe. >.<)

Well i'm gonna crash out now.. Hopefully tomorrow i can get to the new UI .. i feel like such a slacker for not drawing them lately.

the girl in the ink

2008-01-22T22:59:00.001-08:00

In my class we started doing a project with black ink. I've always been scared to use black ink cos of the permanence of the medium but after drawing various lines and designs over 20times i felt far more comfortable with it. After completing the project i decided draw a girl (something I've done most of my life and feel rather comfortable with). I was really pleased with the result.. but still see a lot of room for growth.

tim sale

2008-01-20T23:10:00.000-08:00

I don't know who here is a fan of Heroes (the popular network television show of which has been on hold while the writer strike continues), but i am. Since i first saw the show i've been obsessed with the way that the "future paintings" looked; the ones painted by Isaac Mendez. Well i had to find out more about the art work and after a few mins of research i stumbled across the creator. His name is Tim Sale; He's pretty damn good. After spending a few mins on his site i stumbled across a project of his called "Noir story from SOLO," i loved the art in it! I really liked the way he drew the female character...so i ended up making a Desktop background out of one of his images. I'm not sure if you see the resemblance from my last drawing, but i had "the cheerleader" in my mind when i drew it (Claire from Heroes). Anyway, here's the backgrounds:

another issue

2008-01-17T00:49:00.000-08:00

i got everything ready to do this weeks reeder, i had plans to do this one months ago.. in fact i may have even thought of it years ago.. but i didn't really have to means to do my idea. Now that i have adobe and a more powerful computer i decided it was time to finally do it! Well... i turned on Photo shop the moment i got home anxious to start this idea and what do i find? Windows decides that it can't run anything Adobe. WTF!? It was working earlier.. but i think the issue may have come in when i installed some of the Wacom drivers shortly after i ran it because i realized i didn't have all my brush tools i needed. Something mysterious happened when i ran them...So now i don't have a Reeder for today! Usually i try to get them up by Midnight so that viewers around the world will be able to see them on their Thursday's as well.. but no, not this week. Thanks Microsoft. i love you. ^_~

So for now I'm uninstalling Adobe and reinstalling; i already tried repairing... nothing happened (of course). The un-installation is taking a very long time... i may have to just let it run over night and re-install when i wake up. Hopefully I'll have everything set up by late afternoon and the comic up by evening.

Sorry for the delay.

the new computer and google

2008-01-16T04:07:00.000-08:00

Two days ago i got my new computer in the mail. Its pretty amazing. It's nice and small and does everything i want it to. I've set it up so that when i get new e-mails on google my computer tells me and GoogleTalk always runs on the sidebar of my computer. I really like Google as a company. They seem to make really clean, simple softwear products that all interconnect. Like how this blogger account is connected to my e-mail and that same e-mail is used for various other great product that coordinate with eachother. I was having one difficulty making my display name change be accurate for when people would talk to me on google talk.. but i believe i fixed it. We'll have too see. If i didn't i may just call the company and see if they can help me out. I'd really like to have it set up with the name Joenis Norac for everything. I wish i could say 1000 things about my computer.. but i really don't know what to say about it right now. I guess i will take a picture of it later.

eye in the wind

2008-01-13T20:52:00.000-08:00

While we watched a video about different basic concepts of art i got bored and started drawing an eye. By the time the class was over i drew a woman with wind blowing her hair over one eye, unfortunately though... i don't really know what happened in class. I have some kind of assignment about drawing different forms of lines on 20 index cards. We'll see...

an artistic disorder

2008-01-10T01:24:00.000-08:00

I signed up for a few classes again this semester, a last minute decision on my part which really is no surprise, lately I'm 'winging' a lot about life. I got into Illustration I, Computer Assisted Illustration, 2D Design, Programing in C++, and Personal Finance. I'm pretty excited! This will be the first time i have ever enrolled in classes that completely interest me for my own interests sake! Which should mean, no more moping around and complaining about how I'm bored with the way that teachers forget to teach. Now that i have my Bachelor of Arts i decided it's time to have a little fun with my education!

With me spending so much time on my website and constantly drawing on my new tablet i figured it's about time that i actually learn how to fine tune what I've been doing my whole life; art. I think i had a fear of criticism from teachers, producing stuff people might not like and a further fear that being forced to do art which could possibly make me hate it. Well... I was forced to do Psychology for 4years now and i still enjoy it, never lost interest in it, just my passion to do it as a career. As I'm taking deeper consideration about what I want to do with my life, it may not really be for me.

Since i will be enrolled in so many art classes this semester i will be scanning a lot of my assignments and posting them up here. So, this will not only be my blog but also an "art portfolio." I'm really excited about this all, for once i barely have time to do anything. I have so many projects and things i have to do everyday that i don't really have time to get bored...unless you count when i have to sleep.. i hate laying in bed alone. It's lonely, i miss talking to someone till i fall asleep and frankly its boring. Sleep is over rated.

I drew a really weird sketch in my business class today. If i have time I'll scan it tomorrow and edit this entry so i can post it...till then i gotta force myself to sleep! C++ in the morning!

here it is:

sleepless in whatever

2008-01-05T18:18:00.000-08:00

I've been staying up really late either a) working on the new page lay out or b) watching Heroes at Marc's apartment. This has made me really sleepy. Today i barely have been able to function, i fell asleep during the Seahawks game and haven't had the energy to work on a UI for this week. So i'm sadly probably not doing one this time.. but when the new layout is fully operational this will never be the case again. I've just spent too many hours trying to make this to work.. and forgetting to focus on the sites actually content. i suck at life. {/life}

Good news though is that i bought my new Dell XPS 1330 online today! They are having some after Christmas instant savings deal; with the combination of that and my dad's work discount i saved a little short of 1k! I was kind of mad though, yesterday the instant savings were $799 but since we waited a day too see if my dad's discount would save us more ($275), it went down to $699... i mean yeah his savings were more.. but if he would have remembered to bring his computer home with his work info he we could have saved another $100. Right now thats a lot for me. My last pay check was only about $114. Oh well... still can't wait to get it! :D {/rant}

life and the nonsense

2008-01-04T17:42:00.000-08:00

We'll to be honest, i am really excited about what gonna happen with the noir project. I've spent several hours, and sleepless nights setting it up.. but i'm hoping by next week everything should be ready. With this new layout we are becoming a "comic press," which is something that over joys me! haha. i know that sounds stupid, but it gives me more of a purpose for spending hours on a web comic. I should be focusing on my GRE and grad school.. but its the furthest thing from my mind at this moment.

I'm still struggling with what i want to do with my life, I'm really not sure if Psychology is something i want to do full time or not. Now that i have my BA, I'm really just working on doing what makes me happy,and i've seem to have come back to my first love recently; art. I plan on moving to Seattle come june, and i would like to have this site self sustaining so that i can focus on getting a job and surviving out there and still have time to draw a weekly Reeder and UI. Hopefully Marc is down to make some of the last minute changes needed. We'll see.

I asked Buttersafe to join the project last night.. around 4am i wrote them this long ass e-mail.. i hope it didn't sound stupid. I really want to make this website professional and i think with a comic like that... and my steady progression of Reeder's quality, and Ali's new project that this will actually become a reality.

Well back to the website grind.

do i like this?

2008-01-02T22:40:00.000-08:00

i haven't decided... we'll see.