musical doodles

Faces are fun

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4:00-6:18 = My favorite solo from Marty Friedman. Soak it in.

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Potochop!

Starting a new potochop painting... I'm rusty. :(
I'll be adding pics on this post as I continue, woo!

1.

 

2.

Wow I suck. I need help with hair. T__T

2 years!

So it's been about two years since I got my electric guitar... Man, time flies! I still play pretty regularly, and I feel like I've come a decent way since my beginning days. I don't want to call this an anniversary or anything cus that feels way too celebratory, but it's still something special.

So here's a short, craptastic recording I made today to plant down in my guitar playing timeline. I'll listen to this again next year to see how much better (or worse) I've gotten. Woo!

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Also! I went to see Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet, recently. It's a documentary about an extremely talented guitarist who was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease at a really young age. The guy used to be insane on the guitar, and even though he can't move his body today, he's still making music. How awesome is that? It was really heartbreaking, but uplifting and inspirational all at once. It's only playing in select theaters for a limited time, and the showing I went to had a q&a with the director, so I just had to go! Check it out if you can y'alls. And Happy Holidays! :D

Guitars and Ink

I've now been wailing on my guitar for approximately one and a half years... I'd like to think I'm pretty consistent with playing and learning, and that I've been progressing at a satisfactory pace, but then I'll see some kid prodigy (or Paul Gilbert) on youtube and it totally crushes my dreams, ha. -__-;; Still, the most important thing is to have fun while playing... and for me, playing guitar has never been a chore. Instead, it's been a crazy fun journey from the day I picked it up, and I've got a gut feeling that it won't end anytime soon. Woo!

Anywho, I started recording stuff in GarageBand recently and thought I'd post some of my random playing... I'll reach all my guitar idols' levels some day! (...20 years, give or take)

 (I didn't know how to post just an audio file, so I added a silly picture to complement the silly playing)

And while on the topic of guitars... Just thought I'd share some of Gary Moore's playing! If pouring your soul into an instrument were a sport, he'd a be fuckin olympic champ. Funny guitar faces abound, yes... but when you can move an audience like he does, nothing else matters.

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Oh yea, and here's another inked picture I made... Inking can be extremely meticulous and exhausting, but damn it's fun. :D

Welp, I've got more mental vomit that I wanted to spill out on my blog, but I think I'll save that for next time... Peace!

Haven't inked anything in a while. Well... plop! Here's something. :)

Art update

It's interesting how my focus has shifted from one hobby to another over the years... I used to be all about drawing and painting back when I was still in SVA. It was easy, because I was surrounded by friends and colleagues who were almost entirely focused on getting better at art (derf, it's an art school). We'd stay up all night just to draw for fun, create stories and characters and I thought I was gonna be a crazy, hardcore artist for the rest of my life, woo!

Fast forward a couple years, and I hardly draw anymore. I've resigned to the fact that I'll never draw as much as I did back in SVA, but I'm strangely content with that idea. My "heyday" years in college served its purpose and helped me grow immensely as an artist, and as a person.

That being said, I still get inspired by the countless amazing artists who put their work up on the interwebs, and I even manage to sketch some stuff from time to time! 

Here's some of my latest stuff. Hope y'all dig it.

 

...Yea, the color pencil stuff is retarded. I try!

STUFF.

It's been half a year and I haven't touched my blog, yikes!

ART STUFF.

Unfortunately, I actually haven't been drawing too much at all since my last post, save for a couple sketches here and there... and of course, they happen to be of Regina. Not terribly original, I know. -__-;;

Y U SO MOODY REGINA?

Those little thumbnails on the right are for a fun little animation I was making, using.........(drumroll)

!!!
The HEAVY WEAPONS GUY

There's a rig for the Heavy Weapons guy online that anybody can go ahead and download. The model and textures look pretty official, but the actual rig itself? ...nyehhhh could use some work. Still, it was good enough to work with.

This was actually a collaborative effort between me and the uber awesome Ryan Moran. I animated the first shot of the Heavy jumping down, and Ryan followed it up with the next two shots... I think it works really well! We both added sound to it, including some of the Heavy's own dialogue from the game, heh. There are a couple things in my animation that irk me a bit... but I still like it! It was a fun little exercise. :D

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GUITAR STUFF.

So part of the reason why I haven't been drawing as much lately is cus I got myself a new electric guitar! I bought it last December and have absolutely been loving it. Playing the guitar can be quite a rich, enjoyable, and profound experience... It's also stress relieving. Good stuff.

Fender Blacktop Strat with a Fender VibroChampXD Tube Amp
(very loud, very awesome)

My only regret is that I didn't start playing at an earlier age. Why?

Because of this:

And this:

(skip to 1:20 for Priest solos...)

Paul Gilbert (Racer X, Mr. Big) and Glenn Tipton (Judas Priest), two of my biggest inspirations... Paul, because of his technical prowess, lightning fast playing, and the ability to do it all so cleanly. Glenn, because of his badass musical compositions. These guys make me wanna do nothing but sit on my ass and wail on my guitar all day.... because that's what they did, and that's what every other saucesome guitarist out there did. I've got my work cut out for me... D: But I'm willing to do what it takes!

ANYWHO. That's what's been goin on for me these days. A lack of art and an overflow of music... Boy this was a long entry... But I guess that's what happens after not posting for 6 months!

I'll end this post with my favorite Judas Priest song.....
The Sentinelllll!!! :D
(the very definition of badass)

Peace y'alls!

P.S. - If you've actually read through this ridiculous post, you get a virtual cookie.

The Daahhhk Knight

So I'm in a Batman phase these days. :d Been re-watching the animated series recently... It's too bad that there are no cartoons out there like that now. O_o Some of those episodes are so well made, animation and story wise. Anywho, some sketches!

And one random old drawing of Regina to top it off. :)

That's it for now, let's see how long I manage to neglect my blog this time. Peace!

Herpa derpa thoughts

So I'm going through another "what the hell is the point of everything zomg galaxies and the UNIVERSE!!@$!^%@" phase...

I think we're all important. Each and every one of us have so much in our minds and our hearts... an immeasurable significance in all of us. In every person, there lies value... Pure and raw. Yea, even that douchebag over there. So it pains me to think of how when somebody passes away, all of those memories, all of that information, the joys, the pains, and the experiences inside that person vanish as well. That's why it's so hard for me to believe that that's all there is to this funny little thing called life. My mind rejects this notion like a foreign substance in my body. Do we really just live to eventually pass on and amount to nothing in the end? If so, why should I go on living. It just feels so pointless.

Today I visited my grand dad in the nursing home with my family. He's frail, at a pretty old age, and doesn't remember much these days. Names come and go, and whenever he does remember somebody, it takes quite a while for him to do so. I was never really close to him and honestly, like the jerk I am, I never really cared too much. But today, something happened. He became more than just a "grand dad" in my eyes. I saw him as a person with a lifetime's worth of experiences, as a person who loves, receives love, and as somebody with value and history. Like I said, he really doesn't remember much, and doesn't know what's going on most of the time. But when my grandma started clapping and saying the words to an old song they used to sing together, he immediately remembered it and sang along. It just goes to show how much of a strong memory he has of the song, of singing it with my grandma and how important it is to him. Obviously I was touched, and as I watched them singing, it suddenly became clear to me that these two have lived full lives together, filled to the brim with experiences and journeys I've never known about. Sometimes my family would ask my grand dad a simple question and he'd pause in deep thought, only to give us a totally nonsensical answer. We'd all laugh at just at how silly he sounded... It was a good time, but also bad... because beneath the smiles and the laughs, the thought that he'd be leaving us in the near future became ever prevalent in my mind. And in his current state, I can't really get to know him any better than I do now, because he doesn't even recognize me. One day, he will pass on and everything that makes him who he is, his essence, will go as well.

And when I think about this, my mind retorts... "Really? ...Is that it?"


I haven't made an entry like this in a long time, but I felt it important to document how I was feeling today. In the end, a forgotten experience is a useless one.

Randomadoodles

tiiired.

Cosmic Dreams

Made a sweet pchat collab with the oh so awesome Jess Namnum the other day! Here's the craziness that ensued!!

It started off taking place in my room with a window sill... but that ended up being boring. So we decided to kick it up a notch. We put it in SPACE. Because you know, space makes everything better. Hope ya like!


Also, give this a listen!

http://www.myspace.com/eargasmmetal

It's just one dude and he makes some pretty wicked vg metal. From Megaman to Castlevania to Punchout. If you ever spent your childhood with a snes and genesis controller in your hand, face glued to the tv, this is right up your alley.

Long live the Queen

Was gonna go all out on this, but decided to take some shortcuts. Regina's solo album cover!


She WILL kick your ass.

Bubblicious

Went to a birthday party on Saturday for my friend Henry, and he had planned for us to make some huge bubbles outdoors... Super fun stuff! Homemade solution and some sticks with shoe laces attached is all we needed :) My buddy Jeff brought his saucesome camera and recorded some hd footage of it. Check it out!

Dunno who that guy making the bubble at the end of the video is, but man is he fugly. Peace!

Fo Shizzle

Some crappy doodles, erfa derfa.


Good god, I haven't colored anything in so long... O_o
I think I need to make a new cg soon!