Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Carney-4: Color Options

I convoited the image to Flaysh and threw some color around. Any favorites?


This one's the first option I made. The red kinda blends with the pink too much, now that I look at it.


Here's the next version. I remade it below with a dark green replacing the black stroke throughout.




I like the color contrasts in this one.


I like the colors, but some have pointed out that the creatures don't contrast enough.

With that in mind, I made this one:


I like the contrasts in this one much better now.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Muse: Black Holes and Revelations

I just picked up my first Muse album, based on a few songs I'd heard. So far I'm really digging it. I appreciate the keyboard/synth element. It adds a lot to the songs, especially the opening track. It reminds me of The Who's synth elements.

I'm pretty sure I have listened to an entire Muse album before (I don't remember which one it was, but it was a few years ago) and I remember dismissing them at the time because of the lead singer's style. The drawn out vibratto whine (which seems to be a trendy thing these last few years) was really annoying. I'm pleased to say it doesn't bother me on Black Holes very much. We'll see if it can stand the test of time.

I had also picked up and then got rid of Wolfmother recently. Same deal as Muse: singer grates. Some of the songs are great, but the vocals compete so much with the (very nice) instrumentals I just couldn't take it.

Russkie

Last night at rehearsal our director brought in her Russian neighbor, Rita. She was quite a character and an animated storyteller. Boy, she's seen a lot of stuff in her life. She grew up in Russia during Stalin's regime, and she remembers being brainwashed at school into thinking Stalin was a great man. She said she's almost 80, but you wouldn't know it watching her. She's very alive (something she attributes to the freedom she has in America).

Rita was brought in to help us with our accents. It was interesting taking notes in our scripts about how she pronounced different words. The funniest thing was that she didn't think she had an accent! She spoke of the people at her Assyrian church: "Now they have accents!"

One of the guys in our play, Stephen, used his Russian accent when he spoke to her, and she thought he really was a foreigner! He's got a really good accent, which he says he learned from two Russian guys in his gymnastics class.

We have to have all our lines memorized by next Tuesday! I think I'll be fine, since I don't really have that many, and most of them are just reaction bits of dialogue.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Ball-bearings

A friend of mine has his own "pro model" ball bearings coming out, being released through NiNja Skate, and he's letting me draw all over the packaging! Here are the comps I came up with:

Friday, February 16, 2007

Animated avatar

The unstoppable Frak made this animated .gif out of the Pugg drawing.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Fools

Play practice starts tonight. I'm going to go home and watch a movie with Russian accents (good Russian accents) to get myself "in character."

I'm really excited to learn how this process works. I've never been in a play before. Will I hate it by the end? Love it? Quit my job to do it full-time because I'm convinced I'll "make" "it" "big"? Probably not that last one.

The play is Fools by Neil Simon. I am (or, "play," in theater-speak) Count Gregor Yousekovitch.