I've been mulling over re-writing them for a while and had about 10-12 revisions floating around my harddrives and jumpdrives ever since a particular class at AI that went into specifics on how to write a freelancer contract. Right now, the main thing that is up is a complete restart/revision of what I originally had there with some extra stuff. There is more coming, but, for right now, I'd just like to start rebuilding it and fill in what is there already. There are a few blank spots here and there examples wise that are *almost* ready to be filled. For those who would like to take a look through what services I've available, here's the link:

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/577968/

What finally got me focussing on it was my computer. My main monitor is dying and, since the job hunting hasn't been fruitful yet, I could really use a few commissions to get a new one. I've had my Acer monitor for a while now (The monitor is going on 7? maybe 8 years?) and, while the problem is repairable, it's just not worth it. From what I've gathered, there are 2-3 capacitors that control the backlight and, given time, they will burn out. I can pick up a repair kit with the right capacitors for about 15 bucks, but to install them, I'd either need to risk doing it myself (NOT HAPPENING after the last time I accidentally tapped a capacitor on an ol' crt monitor with a screwdriver while trying to repair it) or pay someone around $150 to $200 for the labor. Given that a replacement monitor with the specs I'm looking for is around $125 to $140, it just doesn't make sense to repair when a new one is cheaper.

On the plus side, I *can* still use my computer for the time being since I run a dual-monitor set up. My secondary monitor is still chugging along just fine so digital drawing commissions are not out of the question. They may just be a tad... rough due to the lowered refresh rate and resolution. I can honestly say I did not think things through as much as I probably should have with my secondary monitor. Did not anticipate going from a 5 hz refresh, 1400x1050 screen resolution to a 12 hz refresh 1152x864 resolution semi-killing my eyes, expecially at night. Granted, it was never picked up to be the primary monitor, just the secondary that I could throw reference stills and other stuff on to while I work on the main, but still something I should have thought about when I got it.

Either way, to capitalize on that plus side, I'd like to try a 3rd? or am I on the 4th? try for Iron Artist. Small twist on it though. Normally, the goal is to do 100 drawings for $1 a piece. I'm looking for, as stated above, a bit more then that. Instead, I'd like to propose 150 to 200 slots. Consider this my Monitor Drive. I plan to have some sketch pages upload to use as examples for the Commission Info post in the next couple of days. That'll be the same example for what that buck will buy here.

Don't have a buck or two to spend, but wanna help out anyway? Just mention I'm open for Iron Artist and spread the word. God knows I'll probably need it.

Thanks in advance

-Paul aka Ras

... straight into planet Kerbin.

Thanks to a few friends, I've now got the game Kerbal Space Program. Been playing with it on and off the last few days and, I've gotta say it's pretty damn fun. A wee bit ridiculous and headache inducing at times (I know they are coming soon, but new tutorials would be EXCESSIVELY HELPFUL cause the ones they have by default explain maybe what 1/8th of the keyboard commands in game [To be specific, WHY IS THE LOCK CURRENT STAGE and the QUICKSAVE/LOAD NOT MENTIONED? Not to mention the cycling through active ships keys, the physical time warp, the landing gear button, and the precision controls would have also been insanely helpful {to quantify, the tutorials in game were quite helpful, they are actually pretty damn good. They don't give you enough fuel in the landing side of it for an absolute newbie and could give you a bit more instruction when it comes to normalizing your rotation plane to ensure better SOI transfers between various orbiting bodies (I just realized that will make no sense to anyone unless you are an astrophysicist or one who has played with the game, and for that I am sorry) but aside from that, they are actually pretty damn helpful for the absolute basics}] as well as just some quality of life improvements to the game [I know they did alot recently after looking it up between .18 and .23 {the current version} but there could be a bit more here and there to fix some of the weird physics issues {I've encountered the Hell Kraken, the Gyro Kraken, the Wormhole Kraken and the Kore Kraken so far and the last time I got the Hell one, my comp blue screened} and other odd bugs I've seen]).

Either way, I've been having fun with it but started to get a lil bored launching kerbals threw jool, and then I noticed earlier something new to tinker with. I've messed with minecraft for a while and I'll openly admit that one of the main things that has kept me playing it over the last few years has been mods. Currently, I've got a nice variety setup that are definitely adding challenge to the game (Damn you RemoteTech2, your networks are a bit of a b*tch to set up, but add a great challenge to the game and makes career mode feel more like an actual career then a planet-probe checklist) and, thanks to a few pics I've seen here and there, it got me curious. Anyone who might play the game and feel up to answering mind listing a few mods you play with and why? Here's what I've got so far and why:

RemoteTech2: Gives Dishes an actual reason to exist aside from being nerfed science transmitters
B9 Aerospace: Was a bit of a challenge to get working, but seemed to be highly recommended due to it's part addons, and after getting it running w/o crashing my instance every 20 seconds, I can see why. Opens a whole lot more options to space planes and rockets.
Deadly Re-entry/Ferram Aerospace Research: Gives me all the more reasons to not fly directly through the atmosphere to the planets surface and to play more with the space plane building.
Kerbal Alarm Clock: If you've accidentally fast forwarded through your manuver window at least once you know why I have this installed
Enhanced Navball: WHY IS THIS NOT STANDARD?!?!?!?!
Infernal Robotcs: I enjoyed robotics in high school and playing with all the parts has been quite fun and open up alot of options expecially with FAR
KW Rocketry: It has a few nice tanks, but the main reason it's in there at the moment is for Ferrings for FAR. You try flying a brick of a satelite safely into orbit with FAR and tell me how well it goes for ya.
KSP Interstellar: Warp drive engines, enough said
Kerbal Engineer Redux: No more (excessive) guessing if I have enough fuel to reach Eeloo or Duna
Kethane: Fuel Pitstop extraordinaire (Also adds extra layer of challenge when mixed with RemoteTech, try searching and mining Kethane ANYWHERE with a remote-op station with no comstat network

Was poking around online for a bit ago, trying to decide whether or not to go to bed a bit earlier then usual, and stumbled across a bit of saddening news. Half of an animation duo that I'm fairly certain EVERYONE has seen at least one of their specials/tv shows at least once passed away on January 30th of this year. Do not mistake me. He did live a long, full, and rich life and died at the age of 89, but, it's just that he seemed to go... unnoticed...

Arthur Rankin Jr, of Rankin and Bass fame, driving force of the stop-motion animation style "Animagic", on of the directors, along with Jules Bass, of many of the perenial holiday specials that we all see every year as well as the rather well known animated "The Hobbit" movie as well as the original Thundercats, has left, not with the fanfare that would be so well deserved from his career, but as a passing word, seemingly forgotten in the hussle and bussle of the world. The specials he worked on were some of my favorites and I go out of my way when possible each year to watch them when they come on. He and his partner were one of my favorite animation teams out there, near the top of the list near Don Bluth, Chuck Jones, John Kricfalusi (John K.) and Will Vinton.

May he rest in peace.

As a small side note to other topics, scans of new work coming as soon as I can get my drawing pad in my scanner (don't ask, odd issue, need to relocate my scanner).

Wtf is with the song Orinoco Flow by Enya? I've just spent the last hour or so listening to it on loop while fiddling around in a drawing pad and it just.... won't ... go... away.... or at least become tiresome as some other songs do after a few plays.

Also, as a side note for the few that may be interested. Been working on random stuff, been putting in a lot of job apps, been turned down a crapload/ignored entirely and, that would be the best rundown of what's been going on since... half a year ago when I posted on my b-day.

To address other things stated in that last journal from oh so long ago as well as other events in order of occurrence.

Minion model project: started modeling and slowly lost interest in it. Just didn't feel right or look right to me.
Streaming: Ain't happening anymore until I can get a job. Bandwidth issues compounded with me enjoying using the net throughout the WHOLE month instead of the first couple weeks. Don't ask.
Job front: See earlier paragraph.
Owed Drawings: Being worked on, just, kinda compounded with losing interest in the minion thing and got pushed to the back
Art block: Would it kindly go FK OFF ALREADY, IT'S BEEN A DAMN YEAR AND IT'S STILL GRINDING AT THE BACK OF MY MIND
Holidays: Happy HalloTurkeyChrismaQuanzHanuka Year. I think I may have missed a few there, but, eh, covered the main ones.
Tumblr: Started using somewhat again for story stuff and debating on posting sketches there.
Recent drama: Not worth arguing with, going to stay here as long as artists I like to see the work from stay. If they leave, I probably will still say just cause I'm a bit of a lazy ass when it comes to websites and updating (hey, I just brought this journal full circle to an earlier comment, cool)

Hope to get some new stuff up soon and will see where things are going as 2014 goes on. Hopefully this year will be better then the last. Only one way to tell....

*prepares bullet proof helmet and armor*

Allons-y, Geronimo

around the sun that is. Around this point, I've usually put in some kind of poem or something along the lines of "finishing a round" or something like that, but, it is, as of the time of this writing, 3:43 AM and I just woke up a bit ago and am currently having issues returning to sleep. So why the hell not make a journal to wrap things up from the prior journal?

Got back from the prior mentioned trip about a week and a half ago, then had to deal with family coming over last week. This week has been fairly quiet so far though. Not much going on aside from alot of job applications and the typical "this position has been filled" replies back. Planning to use a gift card later today for Dave and Busters and have some fun over there for a while.

Saw Monsters U and Despicable Me 2 over the last two weeks. They did a bang up job with both, but DM2 definitely came out alot better the MU. The pacing for MU was WAY too slow at the start, and felt like a story rush job toward the end. I'm going to continue writing this as kinda a flow of consciousness, but try to put up warnings now that there may be spoilers for both movies.





*** Potential Spoilers Ahead for MU and DM2 ***





In Monsters University, the whole thing with Randall hating Sully felt to me like it was possibly one of the weakest things they could have put together. One screwed up event does not a life-long enemy make, otherwise the entire Oozma house would have similar vendettas against everyone in Roar w/e it is house after the whole paint incident durring the houses party. It just... I dunno, shoulda gone back to the storyboard and fleshed out more. It *might* have made more sense if they had a slow boiling rivalry that culminated with that event, but, aside from about 2-3 scenes near the start of the movie and that one near the end, you almost never see Randall at all unless you were actively looking for him in the background. Kinda a shame in my opinion how many missed opportunities they had in it, but, eh, their loss. It was a nice display of their new rendering and physics engine though. Heard something somewhere about them upgrading RenderMan prior to the movie to handle fur dynamics a bit differently and allow for things such as wet fur.

Concerning DM2, the only real complaint I have would be around the girls. Granted, the minions were supposed to be quite a bit more in the spotlight this time around, but they really didn't do much after all they had done with them in the first movie. Illumination Entertainment might give Pixar and Dreamworks a good run for their money though in the future. The minions are frickin laugh a minute and just crazy. The pacing in the story kept at a very nice clip throughout, starting with the hidden arctic base being stolen, the birthday party, being kidnapped by Lucy for the AVL, through to the end with the mutant minion wars with jam blasters and the daring rescue by Gru. Definitely a must see. Guess it is a bit predicable at times, looking back on it now, but the way everything is resolved is well worth the watch.




******* Spoilers End********




It has given me a goofy plan though. I plan to make a minion of my own. Not a real one (as fun as having a crapload of them might be to have), but a 3d model and rigged one. Figure making one should be good practice. It *might* not fully be a portfolio piece, but it could be quite nice as practice and gives me something fun to animate with. Only thing I'm undecided on with it is how far I want to take the rig. I've got a few sketches that need posting (hell, I've got alot of sketches that need posting that were done over the last few weeks) that have bits and pieces of my plans. A hair switch is definitely in, as well as an Eye switch to allow me to have all 3 different eyes. Having a stretchy rig in the overals though... And a mutant minion switch.... I dunno. I'm not against adding them, but at the same token, I am not sure if I want to add in stuff like that to what may be a very complex rig as it is.

Eh, I'll figure it out at some point. For now though, I'm starting to nod off a bit again. It's taken me about 40 minutes to type this, so I'm gonna leave it off here for now.

right as I'm about to head out of town.

/me facepalmed

Spending a week out of town starting later today and I will be mostly unplugged net-wise for the duration. It's gonna be a fairly nice, quiet week.

Will be bringing my camera and my drawing pad and a few other things, but the majority of the gaming, computers, etc will not be joining me.

soo.....

Cya in a week internets.

Working on a few other things at the current time and I don't want them visible yet. Mostly modeling and some semi-minor scripting work in Maya and, due to a few... experiments... I'm trying right now, I don't have the ram to properly do anything & work in maya at the same time without my comp throwing a gigantic error every few seconds.

Might turn the streaming bit to an every other week on sunday/ when I can do it randomly bit to give it, rather ironically, a bit more consistancy. I feel like I might have been out of my gourd the other day when I'd said I'd be doing it 3 times a week. We'll see from here. Sorry again for those who might have wanted to watch.

As the title says, streams are returning this Sunday. Not sure if they are going to return in full (ie friday through sunday) but I'm at least going to take it slow and try to get sunday streaming up and running.

News wise, things have been in general up & down, usually at the same time. The interviews over the last 2 weeks, in general for example, gone like this. For those who may have wanted to know more about the claymation job I had, here's your opportunity to hear the whole thing from my end.

Them: "Thank you for coming, we really like x,y,z aspect and would like to know more about you."

Me: "Mmk, what would you like to know?"

Them: "Lets start off with this, how many projects, solo or team based, have you worked on since graduating?"

Me: "As of today, I have been involved in one. I was working as an animator for a claymation studio until my boss stopped calling me in and responding to my calls."

Them: "So... he fired you?"

Me: "I have no idea. He told me he'd be calling me back in in about a week or two. That was the last time I'd heard from him directly and had occured around June of last year."

Them: "Didn't you try calling him afterward?"

Me: "Yes. I tried calling him at least once a week untill September. I'd even tried emailing and texting him as well. None of it was responded to. At this point, I'm assuming I have been layed off work."

At this point, the interview seems to degrade as they ask various questions, some pertaining to the job that I'm applying for, others being really, really esoteric (In all honesty, why would it matter the type of shoe I wear when I'm working at a computer doing filing work for upwards of 90% of the day? Yes, I was actually asked that for a data-entry job interview at some office place), with the interview always ending on the same two notes...

Them: "Thank you for coming out to the interview, We'll contact you in a couple of weeks about the position"

Next Day....

Email from Them: "Thank you for applying, but we have decided to go with someone else for this position. We'll keep your resume around and contact you again if we have an opening later."

On the plus side, some of the interviews for art-based places do critique my work a bit and give me suggestions on ways to focus. On the negative side of those critiques, I somehow doubt that all of the interviewers know what the hell they are talking about. It's one thing to be close-minded to critiques, it's another thing, at least to me, to correct the person in multiple instances when they are blatantly wrong (Pointillism being created by Picasso? Michaelangelo starting the Neo-Modernism art movement? Where the hell did these people learn their art history from? I'd really love to know).

In the grander scheme of things I've got a new core, an old project renewed, and a plan to get that project complete. The only real obstacle that will be rearing it's head will be Sallie-Mae and a lack of a job. I've managed to fend it off for a while using my savings, but they are starting to dwindle. I *should* have enough for at least 1-2 more months of payments if no job does appear in the immediate future. As it stands, I've run out of places to apply to for the short term. Every small shop around where I live has seen me at least once or twice trying to put in a job application. While awaiting something to hopefully pop up, I refuse to sit around like a log. The art block, for the most part, has crumbled and I've been drawing at least semi-consistently now between bus rides and waiting for interviews to start. I hope to start scanning and uploading stuff, either to my galleries on fa & da or to dropbox and tumblr & my website, very soon.

See title.

Reason they are on hold? I'm getting pulled along into a few things and have *usually* only got time in the morning to do any drawing before either a) getting roped into doing various tasks around the house, b) having to run out the door for near-all day interviews that wind up getting canceled as I'm the next person up or c) getting contacted by friends I haven't talked to in ages pulling me into a few games to catch up and have fun.

To be honest, I'm not too iritated/upset over the last one, but the other two are getting REALLY annoying in a hurry.

I'm not sure how long things will continue like this, so I'm just going to put my own streaming on hold for the time being, work on stuff when I can, and try to upload some finished stuff as soon as possible.

I am truly starting to hate this weekend....

Gonna try to do rando-streams throughout the week and get back to normal come next week's friday.

For reasons beyond my control for the evening, streaming tonight be cancelled. I quite literally just got on my computer a bit ago. Will be streaming tomorrow, possibly starting earlier then usual to make up for the last 2 days. I would try for tonight, but, due to church, I can't and hope to be at least semi-functional that early tomorrow morning.

Things came up. Most likely no stream tonight. I'll put up a journal if that changes, which, as far as things look atm, don't expect one.

*might* continue the stream later, doubtful, but possible. If not, see ya in tomorrow's stream.

Kinda in a lax mood so... might be playing a few games at least at start instead of drawing. Mainly minecraft, just tinkering around on my single player world using a slightly modified version of FTB Ultimate (- gregtech + Dimentional Doors & Ars Magica).

www.livestream.com/rasielsdoodles

Might switch over to Sai/Photoshop later and do some doodling, but for the time being, yeah...

Oh, and the movie, if any were curious, Labyrinth. Kinda obvious, at seemed to be to me, after mentioning the oubliette hint. It's one of those words that... I dunno... just sticks out in one's memory.

Either way, till next journal (most likely tomorrow)

Comp issues apparently were not entirely solved. Need to tinker with it again... Ah well. At least I got though the movie. Ya all have till friday next week, right before the stream, to guess the movie in question (hopefully I can solve the issues on my end before then).

Till next time

Considering going for an oldie - movie wise - durring the stream. (If you'd like to guess the movie before joining the stream, here are the hints) Something that involves an old rocker, some fancy jugling, a whole lot of puppets, a character suffering from anosmia and (Cue obvious hint here) an oubliette. The movie will be starting around 9:30 EST and, till then, I'll just be doodling while listening to a cd I refound, the ost to Myst V, End of Ages.

Also, concerning yesterday's, Had some technical issues pop up, and, well, the nice way to put this is I had no computer for the better part of the day yesterday. Everything fixed now (hopefully) so streaming will happen.

www.livestream.com/rasielsdoodles

Got a few things going on today and, well, I'm not fully paying attention to the clock. Tbh, I was kinda surprised it is as of the time of this being written about 6:30 (it feels like it should be, I dunno, 4? maybe 5 at the latest?). The stream will be going on, just maybe a bit late on my end due to me forgetting or not paying attention to the time. Either way, consider this also to be the stream reminder. Here's the link for those interested.

http://www.livestream.com/rasielsdoodles

For those curious about the weird movie from sunday...

It was Bedknobs and Broomsticks

I have a feeling that the clues I'd given were.... kinda weird, but Eglantine had a spell that created an enchanted bed which they used to move around, she was also trying to get the Star of Astaroth for the substitutionary locomotion spell. They visited Portabello Road on their search for the star. They enjoyed a game of soccer that pitted 2 cartoon animal teams against each other and, toward the end of the movie, they had the germans invade for a short amount of time.

I'd say that hit every point in the hints I'd given.

Also, concerning the streams... After thinking about it a bit, I'm probably going to reserve movies, if they are going to be shown that night to sundays. Just feels kinda... right to keep movies for every once in a while instead of every night. That isn't to say that I won't be streaming videos on fridays and saturdays though. They'll probably be just shorter vids from youtube or perhaps an anime/cartoon I've been interested in. In more of a music mood at the time being though, so I'll probably have grooveshark or something like that going tonight.

Since the stream last night was was fairly empty, I'm gonna leave the little guessing game going for the moment and might reveal it around friday's stream if noone guesses it (If you did join & saw the movie in question, please do not spoil it). That also brings me to the next bit... Despite only having 1-2 people show up in the 3 streams from the last couple days, they were a bit fun for me to try to throw together.

It's this weird... slap-dash... ad-hoc... nature that surrounded the streams that made it fun for me. Do I throw on music? Do I pop on a movie? Should I remove the mini-cam bit in the corner for this? Should I be giving an alternate view here? All those questions and then some ran though my head on each stream and, while I can't be certain if it'll be like that in the longer run, just putting together at least some kind of rough plan like that was enjoyable for me to do. For the next, at least, 4 weeks, I'm going to be trying a streaming run every Friday-Sunday, with a starting time around 8:30 PM EST, and letting it run till either I get tired or absolutely have to get to bed due to things going on the next day. The saturday stream is the main one that will be getting affected by this due to my religious beliefs. Say what you will, but I prefer the Sunday morning, 7:00 AM mass (Semi-old school catholic when it comes to church, but not in beliefs, Those who force their beliefs on others REALLY need a mental check, but that's a rant for another time).

Either way, yeah, short version, planning weekly streaming on fridays through sundays around 8:30 PM eastern standard time and expect either some random movie, probably from youtube or from my own collection, or some random music.

Aside from that, expect some more pics, some random streams (signed up for twitter a while ago [ www.twitter.com/RasielDraconis ] and, since I'm trying to refine my stream settings, might as well do mini-tests and I'm going to try to post the announcements for the random streams on there when they happen), and a few potential animations due to watching "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen". For the record, there are SOOO many lines in that which could be quite fun to animate.

That, however, is for another time.

-PD

Planning to anyway. Sai & Sculptris with possibly either a movie or animation going from either youtube or my own collection. Kinda up in the air at this point as to which, but I've really got a hankerin for a movie with an enchanted bed, a mystic medalion, a road named for a mushroom, a wild game of football (english not american) and a world war 2 invasion.

(+5 Points to you if you can guess the film I be talking about BEFORE the stream)

For those that may want to join early, or something, I might be doing some music or doodling before hand and start early. Here's the streaming loc:

http://www.livestream.com/rasielsdoodles

Well... That took considerably less time then expected, but the again, there wasn't a whole lot there to begin with.

Moved a few things to scraps (alot less then expected) and deleted a whole lot of old pictures. Might go for a "round 2" and move the pieces with sentimental value to scraps, but for now, well, at least it's cleaner and leaner.

Will probably be streaming later today starting around 8:30 again. Sai and more Sculptris most likely as well as possibly a bit of early streaming gameplay in minecraft, dungeonland, or antichamber. Will definitely post when it's live.

Concerning sculptris bust requests, if any are interested, same rules apply:

(Copy/Pasta from earlier journal)

If you have a char that you'd like a 3d bust made of (shoulder level upward) and you have either a few reference pics (I'd prefer at least 2 pictures please, expecially if it's a complicated character) or a really good description (telling me something along the lines of "It's a fawx wif orange furr" or some crap like that is NOT DESCRIPTIVE ENOUGH, put some thought into it and come back again) I'll try to whip up their looks as best as I can while trying to get more familiar with the program.

yet fun...

Noone showed, but I had some fun figuring out sculptris and doodled up a neat looking alien creature who will be uploaded soon. His name shall be Bob for no reason other then, in some strange way, it reminds me of my dad. Don't ask, still semi-tripping on cold meds before going to bed.

In case livestream has a "view recent streams" feature and anyone might wanna watch the progress on Bob, a neutral template head, and a few other things done at random intervals, well, 'ere ya go:

http://www.livestream.com/rasielsdoodles

I'll probably get a few pics of bob uploaded in a few minutes after compositing em together a bit.


Also, as a smallish sidenote concerning sculptris. Neat lil program, I can definitely see a few hopefully fun uses for it in the near future, but as far as models coming straight from it and using em in other programs. Well, that will probably be happening, but after I figure out a decent way to retopoligize the whole thing so that they can be USEFUL. Same goes for texture maps. Both are pretty much garbage coming straight from the program, but, depending on the character, it *might* be possible to get something useful out of it without having brought the character in from outside first. Gonna have to see.

Been on/off cold meds for the last couple days and, in light of a few things, and feeling like turning over more then just a new leaf (Don't get me wrong, I'll be starting with the leaves and eventually move on to branches and then possibly a whole tree or two) I'm gonna be "cleaning" my galleries a bit. On looking back through the ~6 years worth of stuff in em, I just don't feel like alot of what's in them is entirely worthy of being main-page material. As such, the majority will be moved to scraps. If I flat out feel a piece isn't up to snuff so to speak, holds bad memories, or is flat out arsenine sh*t, it'll probably be copied to my HD to give it a final resting place then deleted from the gallery. I *hope* to not have to delete too much, but, well, after getting over a cold bug, the spring cleaning one is taking it's place. so if I wind up deleting over half the stuff in my online gallery, well, so be it.

The plan is to try to get this done for both galleries over the course of the next week, starting either later today/tomorrow after getting home from a job fair. Looking back through the galleries over the last few days and then looking at my recent sketchbook pages (which I still need to scan/post at some point) made me realize that, well, I let things stagnate. In an attempt to get out of that and attack the now diminishing art block head on, I'm gonna clean house.

This leads me to the second part of that prior sentence. Attacking the art block. I, barring the net/my computer dying in some spectacular fashion, WILL be streaming, starting around 8:30 EST. I'll post a streaming announcement when I do that will be up for the duration of the stream. For the most part, I'll be either doodling on Sai or fiddling around with Sculptris. I downloaded the program yesterday since it does work with obj files. I plan to start doing some digital maquettes with it as well as doing detail-work for my own models in the future, but for the time being, I'm going to be in learning mode with it. Which brings me to the next thing I'd like to mention. If you have a char that you'd like a 3d bust made of (shoulder level upward) and you have either a few reference pics (I'd prefer at least 2 pictures please, expecially if it's a complicated character) or a really good description (telling me something along the lines of "It's a fawx wif orange furr" or some crap like that is NOT DESCRIPTIVE ENOUGH, put some thought into it and come back again) I'll try to whip up their looks as best as I can while trying to get more familiar with the program. I dunno how long I'll be streaming for, but I promise I'll be around to get at least 2-3 character heads done before killing the stream.

I plan to create a template head and shoulders to use before hand, so be prepared to hear me fiddling around with that for a bit.

As far as the audio for the evening, I dunno. I might put on some yt vids or pop in a modest mouse/gorillaz cd or something like that. Might even open up for suggestions as well. Honestly, I have absolutely no idea atm. The only thing I can say is that I myself will probably be a bit quiet for the duration of the stream. Throat is still scratchy as hell from the mini-cold so the most you'll hear might be some coughing/throat clearing.

And I'm starting to think I'm semi-high on Alka-seltzer cold & flu right now.... I'll tell ya for certain once my desk stops ebbing and waning like the tide at the beach... This could be a fun evening.

Net is acting odd on my main comp and keeps dropping in & out. Stream re-scheduled for tomorrow/friday around the same time depending on when/if I can fix this.

when you are so sick and tired of seeing one particular thing being drawn, parodied, roleplayed, and other stuff online that you just get soo fed up with it all and go and see what the hell they were all talking about and wind up semi-liking it in the end?

Yeah.... Just kinda went through that and, I gotta say, after seeing stuff like this (http://goregoat.deviantart.com/art/Party-296261109), this (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?li.....A83DC128CC6B4B), and the near-daily comics/stories on the front page of DA/FA, I was flat out getting pissed off at the show and it's seemingly endless multitude of fans. I expected it to be a passing trend, something that was going to blow up for a month or so then die off rather quickly like most memes do. I didn't have the channel and, given the history of the series of animation, I had no interest in seeing how this latest iteration was. It had rebooted itself 2-3 times in the past and I remember the tail end of the last reboot of the series. Just thinking back to what it was makes me shudder (I had a preference as a kid toward this instead (http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8747802/) as it just seemed all over better to me back then, now, looking back, I'd still probably watch it over the equivalent of the other from that time).

At this point, you've probably noticed I've yet to actually name the show in question directly. On the one hand, I'm a student of animation, so I should not have an issue what-so-ever with it aside from quality and writing issues (which, looking back once again, I have many), but something....

Something of the memory of that old generation just makes me loathe saying or writing the words, even after going through and seeing the latest generation of it and seeing how much it actually improved under Lauren Faust's careful eye.

In order to make some peace with it, I wanted to say something, but even now I'm not quite certain on what to say. I'm definitely not at the extreme love for the show that some individuals are toward it, yet, at the same time, once season 3 continues, I might just go out of my way a bit to try to catch it if possible. The storyline, while having it's cornball moments, it's sappy moments, and it's flat out ridiculous moments (remember the mantra, it's just pinky, that will explain everything that just happened) is actually really well written. Alot better then I was honestly expecting. The animation, while feeling a little pre-canned in spots and weak in random areas throughout various episodes, was visually clean, interesting, and fitting for everything that was going on. There were even a few moments that I was thoroughly shocked by how well the characters animations were. The only real complaint I can honestly say I have after going through all the episodes that are currently out (65 to date, with 13 in season 3) is that it felt like some of the episodes had too many songs in them and that some of the songs in those episodes felt kinda forced and wedged in just to fill space or something.

It's weird... I just wanted to go in and watch a few episodes so I could see what all the hype was about and ended up liking that which prior I had started to hate. Weird way the world works, isn't it? Any thoughts?

Either way, yeah.... sorry about doing another wall-o-text journal. I seem to be getting good at these... Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. As a small update on things other then horses and the arcane, job: full time job not found yet but still hunting. Personal projects: getting worked on, but feeling a tad off at times. Website: on hold for a while due to a temp-job from a friend's sister. Everything else: eh, take it or leave it. It's been fun and a downer at times. I really need to get back into digital drawing too.... feeling a tad off when I pick up my tablet pen and can't make a line due to having nothing going on.

Speaking of that... probably Wednesday, around 10 PM EST, sketch request stream w/ (almost) no request turned down. If it's an blazenly adult/fetishy pic, you can try to request it, but expect a no from me. I'll *hopefully* be posting some sketches prior just to show what I've been up to recently. If you happen to pass on the info about the stream to get some others in there, please tell me and if you come make a request, I'll give it some full attention treatment afterward with digital inking and possibly colors.

Really quick turn around on this one, but noone to really blame but my own choice in timing. I might come back to the idea of the mod at some point, but, due to the really, really quick minecraft updates that have been happening since I started and now, and the 2 updates that will be happening in the near future, most of which has changed quite a bit of base code or will be completely re-writing areas of the game, I'm throwing in the towel a bit early and going to respect minecraft mod makers quite a bit more then I had originally. The fact that they can deal with the lightning fast rewrites and prepare for updates, sometimes before they happen, just boggles my mind.

Either way, to make a long story short, I'm through trying to make a mod for minecraft (for the time being anyway, might look into it again once the modding api comes out).

In other news, things have been... well, quiet for the most part. To be honest, that feeling I'd posted a few journals ago back in september hasn't really left me in any reasonable way and has been making everything feel... rather stagnant. It's actually getting me kinda pissed off now when I sit down to draw and the blank page laughs back at me. I'm through with this feeling and I want it gone.

Before I continue this journal, I'd just like to take a moment and say that mentally, when it comes to quite a few things expecially late at night (2:45 AM as of this writing), I've snapped. This journal is probably going to take a few weird twists from here and, despite the feeling to backspace it or delete sections of it, I'm going to let it fly.

To start, again anyway, I've started trying to dig myself out of that mental ditch a lil more proactively now. I've started listening to some old music that I hadn't in ages, started messing around in alot of different games, started distancing myself from Minecraft a bit (I swear that thing is a insatiable monster at best of times and a downright eater of universes at the worst), and forced some smaller doodles together. Nothing worth showing yet, but the structures finally starting to come together into something more.... I dunno... just something more.

Another thing I'd like to do is start socializing a bit more and getting more direct feedback on the stuff I work on. This isn't just a "New Year's Resolution" either. Over the last day or two, I've re-set up a screen capturing software, ran a test on twitch.tv to see how well it might work (runs about a 5 second delay, and there is a weird feedback bug that occured the first time, but I *think* I've solved it). So far, small bugs aside, so good. While there is a bit more setting up to do in the near-future, hopefully it's mostly ready now. I'll link the channel here for now cause there will probably be a few longer unannounced tests to make sure my bandwidth can handle it.

http://www.twitch.tv/rasield/

Should you pop in durring one of the unannounced streams, I will have chat open on my second monitor so feel free to ask a question or give a suggestion. I *might* take a few requests durring those streams as well if either the current pic isn't feeling quite right or if I wanna switch to something new for a bit.

As another attempt to get out of the rut, I'm gonna attempt to hop on with the game-developers guild that has weekly meetings over at FIU. With luck, if they let me in, I can get involved on a few cool projects and possible start work on my own back-log of videogames that I'd like to make as well. To date, I've got about 7 personaly projects that I'd like to work on with a few friends or by myself. One of which, since dropping the mod-making, has started making small bits of headway as far as how the world is layed out, how some of the mechanics work, and small bits of the story. Nothing is solid in it yet, aside from a few key ideas. First, it's going to be a 3D adventure/platformer. Second, magic and perhaps some weird branches of technology will definitely play a large role in their world. Third, final, and the one I KNOW I'm gonna get at least a minor bit of flak over, is that the main character will be a dragon.

***** Prepares shield and for people to start yelling "Stop ripping off spyro!" *****

No, I'm not ripping off spyro. I have too much respect for Insomniac and their original work to even THINK of doing that (Activision on the other hand I'd rather bash their head in with a rusty spiked crowbar till they stop living anymore, but that's a rant for another time). What I would like to do on the other hand is create a new game that emulates the fun gameplay of the original trilogy with new mechanics, my own story, and a new world. Will there be throwbacks to spyro? Probably, I won't deny that I loved the portal system they used in the original trilogy, but it's not going to be a 1:1 spyro clone. I'm sure, for those who might have played them as I had, you remember how far and how quickly the spyro games went downhill when Universal/Vivendi took spyro out from Insomniac's care? In most cases, the games were either glitch-ridden, had very weak stories, or were simply forgetable.

Before this gets too wrapped up in that one game, there are a few others that I've got on the front burners now as well. One being a 4-player co-op hack-n-slash with 4 different characters set in a dream-world. Still ironing out the details on that one, but bits of it are starting to come together as well. Mostly waiting on a buddy that was going to help with some character designs to get back to me (On the off chance you happen to read this on here or over there, Kaiser, did you get a new number? The one I have on my cell won't connect saying something along the lines of "This number has been disconnected.... Goodbye" most of the time. When I don't get that, it just does not ring at all. PM me or send me an email when you can so we can nip this problem and re-establish some kind of contact as well as possibly see about at least looking over some of the sketches you'd said you were working on, scanned or not, either here at my place, over at yours, before/after your shift starts/ends or elsewhere.)

Another game is one that I was working on with a few other friends from college, a robot based game. With luck, at least one of the people that was helping with it will also see this journal (Monbat, hopefully things are going well for ya, if you are still interested in the robots project, can ya send me a pm at some point?). It's definitely an adventure game, and, if we can figure out how to get it working, will let ya customize your bot from a veritable pile-o-parts. For w/e reason... robots and robotic parts have been really simple to draw out and give distinct functions/upgrades to recently. Not sure why... still trying to figure that out. Some of the sketches might be uploaded in the near future, either complete or incomplete.

There are a few more games that I'd like to be working on as well, but, given how even thinking about them sends everything downhill back into rutts-ville, I'm gonna leave the rest off of here for now. Onward to the next idea... which I've no idea why I'm saying that, but, eh, w/e perhaps it'll provide a good segue to the next bit of this... increasingly expansive journal. Oh yeah, speaking of journals, and, by proxy since it's going that way, my website (knew that train of thought was going somewhere).

For those who mighta noticed, my website's url has changed. To make a long story short, Co.cc, the people I'd originally gotten the domain through, closed up shop because too many spammers/hijackers using their domain names for nefarious purposes. This in turn deleted my existing domain name, making the sight unreachable (I still have the webhosting though, and they are doing solidly atm, [for those interested, go check out Byet Hosting { http://byethost.com/ } cause their free hosting ROCKS] and has no signs of going down anytime soon) and forced me to grab a new domain name. While I technically could have gone for another free host (found one like my original going by cu.cc) I decided to shop around and bite the bullet on a more recognizable domain. Thus, my site is back up and running on at a .net ( www.pdsteamworks.net ) and the revisions that I was working on for the flash based site are, semi-regrettably, being scrapped for the time being. There is a major update coming to the website over the next month, maybe two, but I first need to come up with a few things and get it all working properly. For one, I plan to add a blog of some kind that will play host to the lesser sketches that don't exactly feel finished, but are enough to show progress. Second, will be an area for Maya scripts. I've been working on a few of them on and off over the last few months and, at least one of them, is nearly finished and the other not far behind. Without getting into too much detail of either, one is a lighting helper, and the other a tree maker w/ alot of (hopefully) big features. The last feature I'd like to add to the site, I'm still debating on adding. This is a random sentence inside of this thought, the first 3 people that send me a pm saying snausagekraut in it can get a request. Consider it a hidden reward to those who don't just skim-read. Since you made it down this far, congrats and thanks for reading my ramblings. Either way, back to the third item that might be added to my website. It would be forums to act as a community resource/Bug tracker area for the games and for other things as well, but, well, it just feels like too much work to re-set one up again.

It can be all a hassle and a half, as I've already found out, but it's something that kinda needs to be done. The site, as it currently stands, isn't the friendliest thing in the universe toward mobile apple users. Personally, I blame apple for wanting to be a douche and keep flash games away from it's customers so it can over-charge them in their Apps store, but c'est la vie. If people wanna keep throwing their money at the shiny white money pit in the room, they can go ahead and do so. I don't have the old issue with Apple and their computers and other hardware as I used to anymore, but on the same token, I'd still prefer to buy a PC or alternative product over an Apple anyday if for no other core reasons then it's typically cheaper and, in the case of computers, easier to work on/upgrade without specialized training.

Speaking of training, remember that job I think I mentioned a while ago? If I didn't, here's another short version. In January, I got an internship and eventually first job at a place called Clay World working on a claymation. For w/e reason, Jorge, the owner and my former boss, stopped calling me in, stopped taking my calls, stopped responding to my emails and stopped responding to my texts around August. No idea why, but, after 3 months of basically one-sided contact with no replies back to me, I'm fairly certain I've been fired. The job hunt is back on. Urgency on it is a bit higher this time around due to being done at AI because my loans are coming due. I've started putting in alot of applications everywhere once again, and, oddly enough, not a single bite yet, with most claiming the same crap as before. Shows how good that nice piece of paper that cost 60-80k was. Regardless, after the last rather exuberant round of commissions I've had... one moment, I need to extinguish my sarcasm-detector before it explodes... ok, now as I was saying. After seeing how well opening for commisions was, I've decided to leave em open but change one major thing as far as how I've been doing things. This all ties back around to something further up on this journal, which is the activity. My activity has been flat out crap in both my online galleries and on my website. Hell, my last few submissions range in submitted dates between september, march, and february of this year. I need to be more active to refine w/e skill I might have left after not finishing many drawings for the better part of half a year. This in turn *should* get noticed here and start clearing the dust that these pages have accumulated. That in turn *might* get people interested in actually commissioning me to do stuff for them, thereby getting more work done and *potentially* getting more commissions.

Neat cyclical yet catch-22 logic, right? Till that happens fully, I might take on a few requests here and there for those willing to at least give me a chance and a moment of their day. If you caught it already, don't say a thing in the comments. This is also going to be a way for me to gauge if I actually have any watchers or if everyone that watches me (which, tbh, I think is only about 70 people across both sites and of that 70, only 4-6 actively do anything) just nukes my journals as soon as I post em.

Well, this has been quite the article to write... Just looked down again, and it's almost 4:30 in the morn. Guess I'll leave this mess off here for now and see where and how things go. Regardless of whether I get comments or not, I do plan to stick around and be more active, at least till I either get a job or get stupifying busy growing worms out of my chest. Whichever comes first. I'm not picky.