Belated Yourewelgetting

Why is it called "Black" Friday? "Green" Friday could make sense because we become greedy monsters chompin at the best discounts. Or "Blue" Friday could work because we're incredibly sad we still can't buy that $500 flatscreen (that is usually $2000) because it's still not cheap enough. Or "Yellow" Friday because countless thrifters pee themselves from the sight of such incredible bargains. Or "Purple" or "Red" Friday, for the frantic scrambling resulting in bruised bones and blood baths. So many other good possibilities!! Might's well call it Rainbow Friday. (I couldn't think of one for orange.)

I don't know why I ranted.

How was your Thanksgiving? HEY I have an amazing idea: The day after Thanksgiving, a new holiday: Yourewelgetting. Since we spend an entire day thanking people and things, the next logical step is to reply with a nice overwhelming "You're welcome!". In a few years, we could then have the holidays "Howareyaquestion" and "Sameolsameolreply". In fact, if we add a sentence holiday every day of the year, analysts predict we'll have a whole conversation by Spring 2015. The last holiday added would be "Lemmegetthatforyaoffer", which would of course be followed by a friendly "Thanksgiving".

I don't know why I typed all that.

My Turkey Break was great! The awesome week-long R&R consisted of musicals, conventions, dolphin bays and checkers, "slappin da bass"'s, video games, turkeys and hams, scattergorizings, websitings, Goo-Mas, mall visits, people visits, bulgogis, and paintings. Lots and lots of paintings (well, just one piece) (One Piece??) (no, one art piece.) (Oh.).

I don't know why I referenced One Piece.

Now time for us to go back to school! Oh how I squeal with excitement.

Animay Expo

Note, not anime.

First tiny convention! It sure was a lot smaller than the mega madness that is San Diego Comic-Con, but that was sorta expected. What wasn't expected? The amazingness of Fry's. But more on that later.

Me and Whitney (CSUF Whitney, not Whitney Whitney) entered the CTN Animation Expo, got our wristbands, and stood in line. We assumed that line was for going inside the exhibit hall, since our passes only gave us access for that. BUTT, it turns out the line was for a panel thing and we snuck (snook?) inside for free because the guys at the door were, as you say, "noobs" and didn't recognize that our bracelet colors technically shouldn't have been allowed to let us in!

!!!, right!?

So the very first thing we did was watch a free panel of this guy talking about him working on Shrek 4 (DID YOU KNOW there was gonna be a Shrek 4?! Way to milk that franchise to an empty utter, Dreamworks. Please don't sequelize Kung Fu Panda, twas good by itself. And I haven't seen Monsters VS Aliens but I want to!) and he animated a stick-block figure running off screen. Twas pretty good, especially cuz it was FREE!

It was about 15 minutes of him talking and 30 minutes of this. If you weren't interested in animation, you'd probably be bored to tears (which actually sounds very painful), but luckily I found this quite interesting! Mmmm yes, yes indeed mmmm...

After an hour of that, we walked around the exhibit floor. To put it into perspective, I'd say the floor was about the size of 1.5 average gyms (but not as tall), assuming your perception of an "average gym" matches mine.

This picture captures about a quarter of the floor. !!!, right?! That's like the size of one big booth at SD Comic-Con, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just an "oh hey that's smaller" kinda thing.

There were a plethora of (expensive) books on sale, one of them being this one about what appears to be stoned cats and their hallucinations.

Wacom was having some kind of drawing competition. DUDE I totally sampled a Cintiq for the first time! It was pretty awesome and more slippery than I imagined. It's not on the top of my wishlist, but I still want one. Goal: To obtain a Cintiq within 10 years (assuming I'll be doing a lot more digital work in the future).

Speaking of digital work. Check THIS break dancing out!

There were a WHOLE bunch business cards with art like this on them at the Imaginism Studios booth (I got 20 cards HAHA). That one called "Big Bad Bunny Eater" by Bobby Chiu was my favorite.

COSPLAYER IN SIGHTS! I was happy to see one at the convention. (Sorry I got his back, I'm not good at taking sneaky photos.) (And when I say "got his back", I mean got a PICTURE of his back. Although if he were to get into a scuffle, there is a small possibility that I'd help him out. So I guess it works both ways.)

In fact, cosplayers should be at EVERY single CONVENTION! Even at actual cosplay conventions, there should be someone dressed up as someone who's dressed up as someone. As scary as it sounds, that has probably happened before. Cosplayers - the epitomic blend of passion, geekiness, and insanity.

Dude dude, guess who else other than that Deviant Art guy I saw there!

YUP THAT'S RIGHT! Laura Faust and Craig McCracken! THE CREATORS OF FOSTER'S HOME FOR IMAGINARY FRIENDS! (And Powerpuff Girls.) Previously I had only seen them at the Comic-Con 2008 panel, but THERE THEY WERE at their own little booth! Just a few feet away from my feet!

I got to talk to Laura a little, but Craig was busy looking at some stuff. It's funny how nervous I can get when meeting artists I've revered so happily. (See, Comic-Con 09 Half Pixel) Best of all, I had them sign my Blooregard Q. Kazoo keychain!!

YEAH! But now I can't use it. And if you were curious, Craig's working on a graphic novel and Laura's selling dolls, both of them hoping to turn their works into a TV series. And... it'll probably happen.

For lunch I went to Fry's Electronics for my first time! (Other than happening on the same day and being nearby, COMPLETELY unrelated to the expo.)

It had the crazy theme 1950's sci-fi horror movie which, of course, was amazing. There were 50's diners, martians, an octopus, spaceships, and even a 50 foot long gigantic ant that would make any Taylor Tso squeal from giddiness.

After lunch at Fry's, we went back to the expo, looked around a little more, then left for home. In the end I was pleasantly surprised at how much good illustration there was at the convention. Makes me wanna draw on the computer more. Fun times, good day.

As it turns out, we got to see the whole show floor in about 2 hours that morning. So if YOU ever go to the CTN Animation Expo, make sure you get a one day complete pass so you can sit in on the panels and participate in the "connections" mixer thing. Also, bring lotsa money. Those dang artists charge appendages for silly drawings.

Here I Post Again

Music video time.

Here We Go Again - by Jane Han, Kevin Lam, Craig Machado

OUR ECON MUSIC VIDEO PROJECT! From Spring of this year! Finally uploaded! HUZZAH! Quick recap, we had to incorporate events of our lives into a song, much like "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" by REM. So for us "dang teenagers", that's 1991-2009. This took a couple days to write, a day to record, a little less than a week to animate, a day to captionize, and 13 minutes to upload. If I did my math correctly, that's about two years of production!!!!!!!!!!!! Or one week.

At first most of the video was going to be that band playing, but just those beginning animations took quite a while, so I went with bouncing pictures. And... likin' the results!

Credits found on actual Vimeo page.

Today during lunch,

I was kinda bored. After consuming my triple-breaded PB&J mass of deliciousness, I was left with the tin foil it came in. Naturally, I constructed a little foil man from it (who matches my tape man I made in art class that you are completely aware of).


Then I made a little stop-motion animation of him transforming into another foil man... though I don't have motivation to put that together right now.

And then, and then, I made this guy.

And then I started drawing on my hand...

His name is Doctor Cop*! The "gun" in his hand looks like that one gun from Halo. Needler? (without the actual needles)

Victor was reading FML on his iPhone (I eat lunch with him sometimes). Little does he know Doctor Cop is about to blow off his head!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Three new friends!

One new friend! He is sleepy and does not rock out.

Uh oh! This guy doesn't look friendly!

First impression correct.

He grew arms!

Uh oh!

Maybe Doctor Cop and his new hands will stop the bad guy!
(Spoiler: He doesn't.)

Instead, Doctor Cop catches a robber for impersonating Zorro.

The End! I should totally start my own photo blog like Kristina and Maria, this can be my first wonderful post. Prediction: Gazillion hits.

So... very merrily! Entry over! I still have other stuff to talk about too! AND ANIMATION EXPO COMING UP THIS SUNDAY! More on that later! Next update: Thursday or Friday.


* "Doctor Cop" is his name, he is not actually a doctor.

But he is a real cop.

Comic + Weencap

New comic!


On a completely unrelated note, a lil somethin for me only two weeks late:
my Halloween '09 recap.

• Partied-it-up with Frances, Kristina, and Jane (not the partying kind of partying, the commandeering of candy kind). Planned to go to Balboa.
• I was Carl Fredricksen! Yknow. Old man from Up. (Which I saw again today - just as or even MORE awesome the 3rd time!)
• At first I thought this year we were a little too old to go trick-o-treating... but then I saw a picture of an artist named Brad Guigar on Twitter getting his Dr. Strange costume ready for the big day. He's 30-somethin' years old. This wasn't the solidifying sight that convinced me it was okay to trick-o-treat, but it made me feel better about doing so. Also, trick-o-treatin' is still pretty fun.
• Chipotle! Free burritos = long line
• Jane didn't feed me while I was driving us to Balboa to trick-o-treat, but that idea, if executed, would've been both funny and frightening - trying to smash a messy burrito in my face as I maneuver a large car down the road at 70mph and all. Well, maybe just frightening.
• Ladeeda door to door getting candy. Yknow what, I bet religious groups can get some fancy business on Halloween night.

-knock knock, open door-

"Hi, I'm from the 'God Is Awesome' church, would you like to believe in this bible?"

"Oh uh... no-"

"Make a donation?"

"No, no thank you."

"Oh I see. In that case, I am a trick-o-treater, I request that you give me some candy, as you are required to do so to a trick-o-treater. -holds out bag-"

"Um... -drops one lone candy in bag- okay bye now."

"Guess what. You just donated some Bon Bons to Jesus Christ. I win."

Actually I wouldn't want this to happen.

• At one house, the door opened to a guy who called himself "The Wizard". He'd quiz us on random trivia according to our education status (he didn't know much art so I had to answer Beowulf questions), and then gave us candy depending on how many questions we got right. So that was new.
• Later we met up with Darren and Kenny and Kenny's possum posse from UCI! (HAH could you imagine Kenny with a possum?? Actually, that's not very hard to imagine for some reason.)
• Then they left to karaoke I think.
• Lastfinally, we walked down to the beach. For the lack of a philosophical life analogy of the open, breezy beach which led out to an ocean visible by nothing but moonlight, it was cool!
• Then home. Good Halloween. The end.

By the ways, this scene wasn't even in Up, but it's still hilarious on its own...

Thy Coloring

BAM final piece first. I spent almost all day coloring this baby! (Note: Character in image is not actually a baby.)

His tentative name is Elliot and he is a Line Walker. duh duh DUH! "What! What is a 'Line Walker'? What Kevin? What what? Confused soul I hath assumed, doth my mind aspire yonder, for thy groves worn of settlement??" is more or less what you're probably thinking. Well, impressive!, and time shall tell who this Elliot character is...

But right now! Ze process!!

Skipping the penciling part... here's the line art. Looks like he's surfing.

Then I put in the base colors. Is that the right term? "Base" colors?

Darks. Lights. Yeah the whites didn't do much, maybe I should've made the initials darker...

Background bases! If I gave you those colors, then... all my base are belong to you. (NO KEVIN.)

Finalmente, background embellishments.


After that, I covered the piece with a sepia-ish hue, and voila! The picture at the beginning of the post is born!! (Note: Contrary to diction, character in image is still not a baby.)

Now you might be saying "hey I like all those colors better than the final product. Why'd you sepia it..?". I've thought that a few times before looking at other peoples' works (so I assumed you'd think that too), and my answer is: I do it for the mood. It's just personal preference.

"Wait wait, why didn't your BASE colors just use the sepia-ish colors? All that initial coloring went to waste since you just changed it up at the end!". I too have thought this (and so have you)! I wouldn't KNOW what the sepia-ish version of red looks like without first putting the red down, so I color everything without any effects, and then add cool stuff later.

Yup! A little tip to the toes, SMUDGE TOOL WORKS WONDERS. I just discovered it in Photoshop and it's incredibly useful for blending. There's this entry's pro-tip! Although if you never use Photoshop, then you have completely wasted your time reading this paragraph. Gjob, loser. (To the soft-hearted: Just kidding!)

And that's my show! Hope you liked my drawing as much as I did making it! Gnight!!


(Dang. I might be more proud of that Shakespeare-like sentence I made up there.)

Kinder the Garts

Quiz time! Lookathis. Which is better?


These are two different pieces by two different people. One was drawn and ink-washed by a person who has been taking art class for ONE year, the other piece by a person who has been taking art for THREE years. Who drew which one?

A) Left: 1 year artist, Right: 3 year artist
B) Left: 3 year artist, Right: 1 year artist
C) Left: 1 year artist, Right: unmentioned 4 year artist
D) Left: 3 year artist, Right: Kindergartner

Whoa, "kindergartner" is a pretty bizarre word. Is it just me or does it sound pretty badass... like someone who likes to kindergart just for the heck of it.

"He kindergarts!?"

"Yup. He's a kindergartner."

"Dag, yo, I'll be sure to not mess with him..."

Or possibly a "gart" is something to "kinder". That, too, could make sense, although "kinder" doesn't have the alligator toughness that "kindergart" has, so I'm guessing "gart" holds all the balls.

And back to the quiz.

The answer? E) None of the above. (Hopefully you've read this blog long enough to know I'd pull the "none of the above" somethin-somethin like that on you. Cmon. If not, then, well, read more posts ya nimrod.) (HAHA) It's none of the above! Because I made BOTH pieces, of course!

Turns out I'm pretty mediocre when it comes to drawing faces from the front, but pretty good at profile views (or any angle that isn't just straight forward). I also found out how incredibly easy it is to positions pupils just SLIGHTLY off center to make the person look all kinds of psychotic.

This (the art, not the psychotics) brings me to my next point: I want to be a superhero. Not in a traditional sense, clad in skin tight spandex and hidden behind fruit roll-up masks. No, my OTHER definition of a superhero: to have so much knowledge in a particular field that awesomeness radiates from various pours of the hero's body. Something like that. I totally wrote about this in another post (found... HERE!), but I recently realized two things, one being that I'd like to label such a status as "superhero". (I name it superhero because when I see someone doing complicated stuff as if it were nothing, my mind immediately thinks "whoa... _____'s like a superhero..".)

The second thing I epiphanized was that one day, I will be a superhero in art. I'm gonna know "jargon of the pencil" that would make you scratch your head more furiously than a rabbit (except you wouldn't scratch with your foot [or maybe you might, don't wanna rule out possibilities]). Sooner or later I shall proudly say, "Yeah. I'm not an artist in training. Just an artist". And I think I'm 50% there.

Among other things, that's what makes life exciting, dontchaknow? (Haha I went Canadian on you.) You're not exactly sure how or what you'll be doing in the future, whether it be in 10 years or even tomorrow. But you keep moving forward. Because if you don't, then you're not making any more progress than a dead man.

Let's end this post with a beautiful analogy!
Life like climbing a cloudy mountain; you can't really see the peak, but you just keep making your way up there because you know you'll probably stumble across a nice river to bathe in because your pits are drenched in hoards of disgusting.