I love my ibook but having half the screen constantly flickering is really distracting.



So!

I've decided how I am to go about my concept art post graduation lifestyle!

The main deterrent from graduate school is the cost, but I've found a wonderful alternative.

Concept Art's Atelier!

It's a school that was founded only a few years back by some of the leading concept artists of our time with a tuition cost of $600 a month.

It has a rolling admission and new people are let in when the old people leave for jobs or graduate after a two year stint.

From all accounts it is insanely competitive to get in as it is a very small school, and the workload is ridiculous.

For two years the only thing you do is learn how to do concept art and study to be better technically, socializing is done in the context of further learning your craft, and upon graduation you have been forged into something truly awesome.

However, the way they can assure you really are going to be awesome leaving is by only accepting people they think are awesome, or potentially awesome, going in.

Between the small window of opportunity to be chosen and the very large amount of skilled people applying it is not likely that I will be accepted anytime soon.

But this is okay, as it allows me to keep working in the field, while continuing to update my application to the school, until the day comes that I'm good enough to be allowed in.

I figure it will be a few years at least. Hopefully I will get accepted just as I've become tired of shopping my portfolio around for less pay than I would like, or for doing jobs that hold no interest.

It's a plan!

After spending some time talking with Zach I again realize how much of a self centered know it all egoist I am/come across as.

There is nothing that I have heard of that I do not have an opinion on, there is no problem that I will not give advice to, and I am absolutely convinced that life will continue to get better for me no matter what failings I have/encounter.

Happily I can say that I have few emotional problems, but pathologically I sure do have some quirks.

However!

This defect is probably one of the better things I have going for me.

I have been told by teachers and friends that it is healthy to be afraid of the future, and have been admonished for living a sheltered life as well as being naively optimistic.

But to live optimistically while still being motivated, this seems to be the best path one could take.

Oh!

Awesome things = have a place to live upon graduation for six hundred a month/ no utilities, and my internship has started paying me 19 an hour!

Jess was showing me some of the artists she has bookmarked and I had to refrain from grinding my teeth in both admiration and intimidation.

I've always been aware that there's a seemingly infinite number of superior artists out there, but the internet goes out of its way to show you *how* superior they really are.

If I drew because I wanted to impress others or I drew because I thought the world needed what I was doing I would have given up by this point.

Thankfully I draw for the purely self serving reason that I enjoy it immensely.
And it's nice how the most compelling reasons for doing things are usually selfish ones.

...

Actually selflessness is something I've been finding more annoying recently. Or, rather "selflessness".

I have no problem with people being nice or giving to charity or helping out if they feel that help is needed in any situation.

But to do something that is "selfless" only because you feel that you need to is tiresome.

To do it because you feel that someone else will be upset if you don't, or upset if you do, to compromise your own time or ambitions because it's the "right thing to do" just leads to built up resentment and passive aggressive behavior.

And stress is so overrated.

Feel like more is happening in my life and more is on my mind than has been in awhile, but per usual writing down concisely these matters is beyond me.

So I'll just say that everything is moving forwards in a very agreeable way.

also random images, bigger things to come when more photogenic.

Time has again decided to be lazy as hell and started to take most of the day off.

If I could perceive time through someone elses eyes I would be appalled at how little of it I retain.

But thankfully I don't have that perspective.

Considering graduate school, but have neither the time or money, and not even sure if I could get in.

Never thought that I would want to remain in an academic world for any longer than I had to, but the idea of being surrounded by people of that artistic caliber who all focus on concept art is just insanely alluring.

Have such a desire to improve, and I just can't stand to let it take any longer than it has to.
Still haven't become a hermit yet so most of that blame falls on me.

...

Continuing to have a stronger sense of "self".

Kind of feel like this is dangerous somehow.

But I'm still oblivious 78% of the time, so I guess that helps even things out.

p.s.

Go read "Scott Pilgrim".

It makes you feel ::awesome::

Ugh.

I think it comes from me just drawing individual items for years, essentially learning how to draw from doodles, but creating whole scenes always leads to me confusing the viewer.

I overdo it with color and with details, creating too many of them too evenly spaced.

I realize that I've started to do that again this time, but I'm going to push as hard as I can away from that for the final piece.

It's funny how it's so easy to acknowledge flaws but yet when you try and grab them they just get so damn slippery.

bah!

.

On a brighter note my life is awesome at the moment.

I really can't help it.

I just feel that everything is going to work out fine, not because it logically has to, but because I want it to.

Just as I feel that I should be able to influence the weather or the arrival of a subway train by willing it with my mind, I also feel that I will be able to influence the future through my actions and my desires.

Weather eventually clears up and trains arrive (even the G) and along those same lines the future occasionally turns out the way you wanted it to without you really having a say in the matter.

All the same, I'm glad I feel this way.

If things are going to work or not work regardless of my say so, then I'd really rather have the illusion that I'm doing something right.

I've had a relaxing week.

It wasn't really restful, but it was enjoyable as hell, and I actually got alot of stuff done that wasn't classwork.

However now I really have to refocus on said classwork.

I've got the teachers and classes of my dreams so it really isn't any kind of hassle to do the work. It's just a matter of giving myself the time.

Soo... in order to make this a bit easier i'm going to (probably) quit my job at the labs.

My internship finally has a confirmed job (or two) so that means contracts and that means getting some payment for real work instead of getting paid to shuffle papers around and nag fellow students about getting the proper semester stickers.

And I really do love doing this concept art business.

My teacher today told me I should go to graduate school for it. I would love to more than anything.

Can't convince myself that the time or money is worth investing though.

eh.

Okay.

So this city is going to be based off of manhattan, the areas around it are just wastelands now, and it's become virtually self contained, and heavily policed.

These are still just sketches.

Also comic con is this weekend and I'm planning on shopping my portfolio around. The advice alone from the professional artists will make it worth it even if no one else has anything for me.

...

Um, oh yeah!

Tolkien totally ripped off Wagner.

Just need to make sure the word gets out.

I remember when I was probably about eleven or twelve (well, young anyways. placing age is not a strong point in my memories) and I had eaten some bad ravioli.

I had already thrown up everything inside of my stomach and was dry heaving into the toilet, my eyes burning with tears and my whole body covered with sweat and shaking with the exhaustion of its exertions.

Life, at that moment, was unbearable.

However I knew that this wasn't a death knell, just food sickness. I knew that this wasn't a permanent affliction, just something that would last for hours and be done.

I knew that by the time morning came I would be asleep, and by that afternoon I would be fine.

It is true that chemically I seem to have been built to be an optimist.

So maybe it is easier for me to believe things will work out unless proven otherwise.

But I just cannot understand why so many people seem to embrace pessimism as if it is something worth holding onto, as if predicting failure somehow protects them from it, and as if accepting agony ahead of time somehow subtracts from the agonies of the future.