"Atomic Bomb Embedded in Facebook?!" Oh, my!

Recently, I've been working on a presentation for my Fine Arts 113 online course, and it just crossed my mind today that I should maybe think about posting the presentation here.  

There were a wide range of topics to choose from in our introduction to World War II assignment but the outline seemed to be calling for events and people who made the war more towards the side of dramatic (and let's face it, what can be more dramatizing than an Atomic Bomb?!)  So, I decided to run with concept of basing it around this.  

I decided to narrow my topic down from just atomic bombs in general, to the one that fell on Japan and then to "Fat Man" (the one that fell on Hiroshima) in specific.  However, as I was searching around dictionary.com for definitions of atomic bomb this is what came up:  

I feel sorry for Mr. Bomb... Atom's parents must have a really poor sense of humour.

-So does Google for generating absurd adds such as this one.  Don't worry though, I'm sure that Adam's (Oops!) I mean Atom's parents got a good dose of karma the first time they tried to go on a family vacation to Cuba.  "Your name, sur?" Lol...  But wait, there's more! 

This is just too hilarious; I checked the link to the site, and it turned out to be some kind of skincare product. 

-"Let's go rub our skin with leftover radioactive waste from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor in Japan in hopes of bettering our epidermal appeal!"  "Mmkay..." 

Yeah, I don't know about these ads, but I sure hope that my presentation will be worthwhile.  We'll just have to wait and see on that one.  

True Blogging Potential Awakening: lonely totem pole's views skyrocket!

I'm starting to get into photography, taking pictures about once a week.  I always loved viewing photographs and taking pictures myself, but I never really did it as a disciplined form of artwork up until now.

I've noticed too, that a gentle mix of drawings and picture really draws in a crowd.  People seem to be more interested in the person behind the drawings than their drawings themselves at times, so it's good to give the people what they want.  

I guess the reason that the reason for me not touching my camera until now is because I didn't feel comfortable with it.  It's probably strange to hear a teenager say this but... I don't like Facebook.   There!  I said it!  Maybe I do see it having some implications in the future, but for the time being, its best for me to stay away.  If I want to become an artist who goes showing his face around the internet and elsewhere, I have to be careful of who people see me associating with.  Some of us judge others based on their friends, do we not?  So if one of my 'friends' (or just someone you've met only once in real life but have added to Facebook) goes posting a picture of themselves drunk at a party, then professionally, what will people think of you?  Not too many high school students think of that when signing on.  Perhaps we should. 

Anyhow, the results I have gotten from including a mere two photographs in my last post really pleases me.  

It seems as though viewing photos of my culture and where I come from really perks your interest, and I have to admit that I am touched by this.  I have always thought of giving back to the community that raised me, so I guess that a cultural identification is a must for me as I progress into making a career out of this.  

"LEN-Komix, Atlantic-Canadian artist..." that sure does have a nice ring to it.  

My views for the past two weeks are the highest they've ever been!  You appear to be coming from all over too.  At times, I wondered if the bulk of my views were just my friends, but now I am assured that they aren't.  Before when it said "3 views from Canada" there was no way of telling if the person was someone I knew or not, and I was kind of hoping that they were strangers, you know, to attract new faces to my blog.  But, when all your views for one day are from outside the country, you are almost completely sure that they are part of an audience that aren't your closest friends.  This is all very good.  

I've been working very hard as of late in achieving a solid look to many of the characters and settings for my future comic project.  I might as well call it future now, because calling it current makes it kind of misleading.  Truth be told, I haven't really got anything of a finished product to show you guys yet, so it is not fair of me to get everyone hyped up for nothing.  What I do have though is what I believe to be an excellent concept of a comic with charming characters and a self-absorbing story.  I haven't come to set myself up with any real deadlines for this however, so it may be long after I graduate before you see this hitting store shelves or anything.  Yet, (and I did tell my parents this) I plan on pouring myself into the project in the next couple of months following the school's end, and I do want to get to the main body of my comic, creating chapters and such when I'm freed from having to juggle schoolwork at the same time.  I work far better when I don't have other things weighing me down.  

As always, if any of you want to view more posts
containing pictures, try making use of the labels
currently locate at the top of this page!

*I've got more "My Themed Life" content coming your way in the next couple of weeks leading up to Summer Vacation in June.  There will be loads of Pokémon and The Hunger Games-themed content being posted here, so STAY TUNED!  

I made a crossword... Wanna' See?

Recently, I have undertaken a little art project for my English class.  We were put into groups and asked to come up with a lesson plan to teach the class about a romantic poet of our choice.  My partner and I decided to do our's on William Wordsworth.  The name just seemed to jump off the page when I read it, so I knew we had to pick him!  Plus, we both knew a thing or two about him, or at least remembered reading one of his poems before.

I based them off a couple of portraits I found of him after doing a Google Image search.  He was from a time long before photographs and camera were around.  This is all I had to go by.  Still, I think I have a feel for the kind of man he was.  

There was a list of things we had to do over the two classes allotted for us in teaching the class.  One of the items read...

Arg!  I messed up on Plue's hand!  (That's right, I decided to call him Plue after all.  It's short for Polarious.)
Maybe it is too soon to be saying this, but I am thinking about giving him an appearance in my comic
"Knights of Mamus'sa."  Although, I don't think that he will look like this... You'll just have to wait and see!  

As Polarious said, I thought to myself "I should do this..." and not just do it I also really wanted to do it.  And so, I did.  Here are some pieces of draft work for you to ponder about:

I made a crossword but it is not quite pieced together.  However, I can guarantee that it will posted here as soon as it is!  (Or whenever I feel it's right to... I haven't made up my mind yet.)

It's a 'White Easter' this year in New Brunswick

I'm supposed to look overjoyed in this sketch,
not sad!  (Just so you know the difference.)

This week, even though it was short, was a hard one to pull through.  I had set myself set up pretty bad after missing Monday's classes at school, and the staying at home to work on my speech got me nowhere.  I felt like I was only digging a deeper whole with my schoolwork in general, and just as I figured would happen, my pain and suffering was only an allusion to a sudden metaphorical growth.

This week's moping seemed to bring me out of my trance.  I've been so consumed and drawn into my academics as of late that I seemed to forget who I was and why I'm here, as I do so often.  Every now and again I need to remind myself that my marks aren't everything; they aren't the basis of how well I'm doing, they are only one aspect of my life!  Well-being, for me right now, should be based on just how content I am with myself, my social life and my art.  However, when an outside force begins to command all of my attention, I seem to let the others slip and fall into a trap.  Luckily, towards the end of the week, I seemed to find myself again; I know where I'm headed and have gotten my bearings straight!  (It's about time, hmm?)

I have come to realize that in one a quarter year's time, I graduate!  That's a big deal.  It means a lot to me.  And so once I graduate, my life isn't going to be based on whether or not I know "What combines with hydrogen to produce water?" but on how skilled I am as an artist.  Let's face it, artists don't need much in the way of grades to get into their courses.  Nope!  You need dexterity and determination, talent and will power!  Enough of this stressing over things that in two years time mean nothing to me... My mind is now set on art!

I feel like I need some art and blogging therapy right now, so I'm going to fill you guys in about what I've been working on:

• Page Four of my comic (Now set aside until more concept art has been completed.)  
• Maps: Over the course of this month, I have come to develop a real 'finalized' version of the map that includes all the major locations needed to tell the main story of my comic.  
• Settings: I have sectioned off different regions of the map and tried to use my imagination in constructing what I feel some of the places should look like as seen from the eyes of a bird soaring over the various kinds of structures and terrain. 
• Character designs: I have just resurrected a couple of the characters that will have a major appearance in the first book.  My art style has developed over the months since I have undertaken this project.  
• Blog Posts (Here are a list of ones that are currently in the drafting state): "Welcome to the Internet, Mus'ka", How to scare a Nerd (saving this one for next Halloween), Picture Storage (only used to hold the odd image as I travel from one computer to another; disregard), Len Square (A post about my efforts in trying to make a cartoon version of myself for my blog), Seventeen (A post from a back in January that never made it out.  I don't know if my vision for it is still the same?), Deviously Cute (Reviewing my experience in designing a t-shirt of the deviantART 'Cute Monsters' contest), Another Winter Shelter (I will give instructions on how to make a shelter out of fallen trees and snow.  Originally written for my outdoor pursuits class at school.),  Pokemon and Nostalgia (describing what it felt like to start to replay Pokemon Blue as a teenager), How to Build a Quinzhee (instructions to building a secure snow fort; another OP class creation.  Plus, an inked and coloured version of one of my comic's settings as part of its concept art.), *{There are many more that are in the planning stages and just haven't made it into drafts yet...} 
• Tidying Up: Going back and fixing various grammatical and spelling errors I've made in my earlier posts. Rethinking the use of some of the tags that you see at the top of this page.  
• Photography: I've dug out my camera again, so lately I've been taking lost of photos!  My cousin has really inspired me with her sudden interest in photography.  I was inhibited by Vista's horrible way of organizing stored images, but now with windows seven, I feel much more comfortable in trying this.  (Fingers crossed!  Hope I can get some nice ones to my blog without too many problems.)
• My Themed Life: This part of my blog and deviantART is currently on pause in real life (I have assigned no theme for myself this week.)  I have many posts backed up that I would still like to get out there for my audience with my two themes Pokemon and The Hunger Games, so until I've worked the life out of them, I am at a pause with this.  

Below is a list of posts that are either finished or in the making for the "My Themed Life" section of my blog:

• Pokemon Week: Favourite Pokemon (completed), Replaying Pokemon Blue (have information written down, drew some sketches, still trying to finish the game up to the point where I can carry out the 'Mew Glitch'), Outdoor photography featuring my Game Boy Colour and I in a winter landscape (Photos have been taken, downloaded and selected.  Written portion of post still needs to be done; no draft has been created), Pokemon Black and White 2: My reaction (nothing has been done yet.)
• Hunger Games Week: How I Pictured Things (need to find and make copies of cartoon characters that look like the ones I saw in my head while reading, no write-up has been attempted), One With Nature (made sketches almost daily for a week, photography has been taken, no write-up has been done), My Hunger Games Strategy (just a though... nothing done.)

I mentioned above about doing colourized versions of different settings in my comic.  Since this is a frosty scene, I thought that I'd couple it in with this post just so all of you good lads and lasses can have a looksy.

This is the rough draftwork I made while sorting out how I wanted the Southern-most region of the fictional world to look. 

I am really excited about this one!  Through different sources I've found online about beta versions of video games, movies and such, I have discovered that the concept art plays a big role in achieving a concrete model of how you want things to look in the end for your product and that if I want to make all of my panels featuring vast and complex backgrounds to look anyways congruent, then I need to try and replicate this somehow.  So I've tossed my main pages aside and started in on concept art. 

I know that it's only the penciled version, put it's looking pretty good for something that only took me a couple of minutes to sketch.  Good copy will be coming soon in the post "How to build a Quinzhee."

As the title of this post implies, it is Easter and there is snow on the ground.  How's that for being Canadian?

We went from having this one day...

To this the next.

I can honestly say that this is not an uncommon sight here in New Brunswick, and I have many earlier-childhood memories of running about outside searching for Easter eggs in the snow with my cousins, while trying to dodge the odd snowball.  What fun!
_________________________
Oh!  I just looked at the clock and noticed that it is now past twelve.... So much for having this posted on Easter Sunday.  :|  (Frowny face)  "~Happy Easter Monday, Ya'l!!!"
I went skiing directly after making this.  I just couldn't stand all this excitement! 

Otters Stuffed in Onion Suits Hate Math Equations

So, I've been feeling pretty down on my luck this week. Oh, and no, its not anything serious, everything was good up until just now.  You see, we started speeches, and its not that I hate them, because I don't, it's just that they're very stressful that's all.  I have a bad history with speeches; I never really was very good at public speaking at any point in my life until just recently, but now that I have gotten much better about making conversation with people in general, I am still tainted with the residue of years past.

Back in grade eight I wrote a speech for my language arts class about the history of Nintendo, and ended up turning what should have been a four to five minute speech into a fourteen minute speech.  Not fun.  I don't think that my middle-school language arts teacher (who is actually my vice principal now) or me will ever forget.  It was three months over-due and I squirmed in my seat every day in class that was the date I was supposed to present.  My friends never did get to here about that one, eh?

I presented my speech after school that year to him alone, and because it was so long I missed my bus and he offered me a ride home.  I was quiet almost the whole way, and it was not surprising because my parents always told me to never hitch a ride with anyone you don't know, and to me, I only knew that he taught me.  He was a teacher, and there was nothing more I could say.

I guess that through trying to avoid a repeat of grade eight I have just brought on another downfall.  I stayed home today, and today I was supposed to present.  Rats.  I find that I do that with a lot of different subjects this year.  I've improved so much from where I was in middle school with handling schoolwork, that I try and make an effort to show it off.  Reveal to the teachers just how much better I am at getting things in on time.  But it sometimes makes me lie to myself, thinking that I could actually handle it all by myself.  Working myself past twelve o'clock just to reach a due date is not my idea of having fun.  I just break down.  Get disjoint and out of place.  It's not healthy.

But I am better.  I know my limits, and am picking up the ques well.  I know when I've had enough, and I've had enough.

As you can tell from my doodles, my other courses have suffered from the particular interest I'm dumping into English.  In the past week I've gone from knowing everything that's going on in math to not having a clue what the teacher is talking about.  Imaginary Numbers?  Come again?

Through all of this though, I haven't given up on you, my dear viewers.  I've been doing the odd sketch and photo here and there to help me keep sane.  I am sane and I am going to school tomorrow too.

(If you don't recognize this  little guy, then I suggest that you go take a look at my deviantART cute monster's design challenge t-shirt right away!  I would make me feel a lot better...)

I've been thinking about making him my blogger mascot, so I really worked with him this week trying to draw him from all sorts of different angles.  These aren't even half of the angles I tried to make him fit into!  It's pretty tough, but skill building I guess.  I still haven't even decided on a name yet.  (Plue or Pooshmoo?  How about Plue the Pooshmoon?  Eh, what do I know...)

I had to post something to feel like I got something accomplished today... {Sigh}