Months and months have passed since I actually wrote in this damn thing. Since then it's been a long road.
Most notably when I was going through what I could best describe as a kind of psychosis when I just wasn't myself. I even had it pointed out to me and I was angry all the time. (Editor's note: Boy am I glad I didn't post that blog that I wrote then. It has since been deleted.) I felt like I was being pushed to the breaking point that I found myself once in my life and never want to revisit that point. I've made peace with it once before. Let's not do that again.
Megacake Meltdown was a thing in Topeka, KS. What was Megacake Meltdown? It's a gaming event where we gather to go head to head in vs games like Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, Mortal Kombat, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, among others. 70 people attended and let me tell you, I ran the Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 couch for hours. HOURS!!! I'm not saying I never lost. Hell, once I even lost to one of the best UMvC3 players that I personally know. Mel can take a bow now. But I always came back. I lost 3 times in four hours. Yeah, it was a good night. Thank you all for visiting Avenger Academy.*
Megacake Meltdown is the evolution from when about 30 of us gathered in a garage, we brought tvs and gaming systems, putting our skills to the test with pride on the line. It was really the first time something like this was done since arcades have closed in Topeka. We consisted of at least 3 different gaming communities. It was a lot of fun and until Megacake Meltdown was only a one time deal. Now we have grown. But even this was merely an evolution of what we all called Poundcake.
So what is Poundcake? It spawned out of my own living room with my best of friends. We all are the fathers/mothers of Poundcake, we are the Godparents of MegaPoundcake! If you wanna know why we call it Poundcake and more about *Avengers Academy then read here.
DC Comics recently held a talent search and it was met with much controversy, but yet I wanted to be part of it. The concept was simple, create a page for their upcoming Harley Quinn #0. The controversy was that she would be trying to commit suicide and yet DC wanted it "sexy." More or less the final panel would have her naked in a bathtub about to pull a rope dropping toasters, hair dryers, and other small appliances into the bathtub with her. It was a page I started and got some good reference material, and even got a rough, ROUGH draft on paper. For anyone wondering, in the end it wasn't to be. I got called out to work the next day and couldn't finish it in time.
My inability to finish the DC talent search has renewed my own interest in my work. I have all the resources at my finger tips and have a bit of a fun project to go along with it. I've briefly explained this project with a close confidant and I'm feeling pretty good about this. The long term goal in this is to create a local media production company, producing such things as print, video, animation, and who knows where else. It's very ambitious but hey, if you don't shoot for the stars how do you ever expect to end up among them? I've actually had plans for this for a long time. Specs for a portable animation sound booth was created at one point. Yes, I said portable.
So I have alot of work ahead of me. I should be home in a few days and the first thing on my list, to get some of Eichi work done. I've got a few pages, I just need to keep moving forward with it.
Friday, October 18, 2013
Friday, June 21, 2013
Untimely Update!
It's been a while since I blogged here. My other blog Nurdgasmic has seen more updates than my personal blog. So how are you guys? Miss my noodle noggin nuggets yet?
Life has been kind of crazy busy so I don't get the time that I should to write these blogs anymore. Honestly I don't think a lot has changed but then again part of me feels that it has or at least I can try to find something to keep you guys interested in. OH! I know!
SDCC. I know that a while ago I had made a commitment to get out my story of Eichi by SDCC in some form of self published manga paper back book....thing. I've been so busy with work and catching up with friends at home that it hasn't come to fruition yet. That being said, I didn't get tickets to SDCC either. But it's coming. I've already started the first draft and started putting pictures to those writings. It has an official start and that's a good thing. It's a step in the right direction. That being said, I'm hoping to have it submitted to Comixology, a digital comic service widely available on any tablet, reading device, and web. The idea is to make the first comic available for $.99 of $1.99 and make an ashcan comic that introduces you to some of the characters, storyline, and artwork for free.
While I'm talking about Eichi, if all of this goes well with the comic I'll start putting it into it's originally intended format, animation. (I recently purchased animation software and am working through it, but more on that later. ) I recently sat down one night and spaced it all out to see if I knew where it was going and labeled out all of it's plot points from beginning to end. Putting everything into animation time, each plot point (without filler episodes) would take approximately two episodes which would result in 57 episodes without filler and everything culminating up to a final movie. It's ambitious to say the least and very time consuming. To really cut down on timing the aforementioned comic would actually stand as a form of cliff notes to the whole series.
While Eichi is in the works I'm currently trying to sit down and learn an animation program that I purchased. Long story short, it took me a good hour just to figure out animating a circle and the circle changing shape. It was a three to five second animation, but through leaps and bounds I jumped ahead to try and animate a picture I have already drawn and uploaded into the animator. I wasn't so successful there so I'm having to go back.
I had wrote a long time ago, if any of you remember my Myspace blog, about a project that I was working on that involved mech armor, a small town in Kansas, youtube, etc, etc. The small town in Kansas was called New Strawn, it was the name of this project. New Strawn was a story that would be told over a series of short three to five minute episodes on youtube, animated no with..... you guessed it, the current bane of my existence. (See above.) New Strawn is a police story, different than anything else I have dabbled with.
The idea is this, the year is 2415. Over the decades and centuries threats of war and violence have escalated. As the threats escalated weapons became larger until cities are now protected with a police force that utilize mobile suits or mech armor as the criminals have resorted to the same. New to the force are psionics, people with the ability of telekinesis and can sense and stop crime before it happens via precognition techniques. Claire is the main focus of the story as she is the lead psionic in the police force of New Strawn.
I could go on and on about it but that would take the fun away. Something else that is new to me is writing with a female lead. Not like that should be too different, but hey, it is what it is. I sat down one night at home and started trying to hammer out some concept sketches. I'll be doing more of that when I get back home.
I've recently started toying with the idea of selling sketches or prints of artwork and taking custom requests via websites like Fiver, Etsy, or a Store Envy. Mostly all comic related artwork as that would be my "expertise" and I use that term loosely.
I'm trying to put a lot on my table so one day I can stop working for the big guy and one day, hopefully, work for numero uno, ME! I worked on a piece taken from a friends photograph and was inspired by some old style pop art and it was fairly well received. I've thought about exploring that avenue some more but definitely moving to canvas. I know once I find my own place to live then it's going to be a definite because then I will have the space.
Speaking of (this blog is getting longer than I had anticipated) I've recently thought about buying a house again. Granted it won't happened any time soon because of a few reasons in my life, but I thought about what my ultimate house look like. I can't tell you where I would want a house but I can say I often thought about going back to school to become an architect to design my own house. Then I realized Fuck that, it's too damn long and too expensive to one, just to design my own house and two, the income doesn't warrant that type of a dedication for it would take 7 to 10 years. YEARS! To maybe break $75k a year. But here are a few pictures of what my ideal home would look like.
Since I'm getting close to 1000 words I think I'm going to stop while I'm ahead and go back and throw in some pictures for you to break it all up. Enjoy!
-Pat!
Life has been kind of crazy busy so I don't get the time that I should to write these blogs anymore. Honestly I don't think a lot has changed but then again part of me feels that it has or at least I can try to find something to keep you guys interested in. OH! I know!
SDCC. I know that a while ago I had made a commitment to get out my story of Eichi by SDCC in some form of self published manga paper back book....thing. I've been so busy with work and catching up with friends at home that it hasn't come to fruition yet. That being said, I didn't get tickets to SDCC either. But it's coming. I've already started the first draft and started putting pictures to those writings. It has an official start and that's a good thing. It's a step in the right direction. That being said, I'm hoping to have it submitted to Comixology, a digital comic service widely available on any tablet, reading device, and web. The idea is to make the first comic available for $.99 of $1.99 and make an ashcan comic that introduces you to some of the characters, storyline, and artwork for free. 
While I'm talking about Eichi, if all of this goes well with the comic I'll start putting it into it's originally intended format, animation. (I recently purchased animation software and am working through it, but more on that later. ) I recently sat down one night and spaced it all out to see if I knew where it was going and labeled out all of it's plot points from beginning to end. Putting everything into animation time, each plot point (without filler episodes) would take approximately two episodes which would result in 57 episodes without filler and everything culminating up to a final movie. It's ambitious to say the least and very time consuming. To really cut down on timing the aforementioned comic would actually stand as a form of cliff notes to the whole series. While Eichi is in the works I'm currently trying to sit down and learn an animation program that I purchased. Long story short, it took me a good hour just to figure out animating a circle and the circle changing shape. It was a three to five second animation, but through leaps and bounds I jumped ahead to try and animate a picture I have already drawn and uploaded into the animator. I wasn't so successful there so I'm having to go back.
 |
| Not my artwork, from Mobile Suit Gundam. |
The idea is this, the year is 2415. Over the decades and centuries threats of war and violence have escalated. As the threats escalated weapons became larger until cities are now protected with a police force that utilize mobile suits or mech armor as the criminals have resorted to the same. New to the force are psionics, people with the ability of telekinesis and can sense and stop crime before it happens via precognition techniques. Claire is the main focus of the story as she is the lead psionic in the police force of New Strawn.
I could go on and on about it but that would take the fun away. Something else that is new to me is writing with a female lead. Not like that should be too different, but hey, it is what it is. I sat down one night at home and started trying to hammer out some concept sketches. I'll be doing more of that when I get back home.
I've recently started toying with the idea of selling sketches or prints of artwork and taking custom requests via websites like Fiver, Etsy, or a Store Envy. Mostly all comic related artwork as that would be my "expertise" and I use that term loosely. 
I'm trying to put a lot on my table so one day I can stop working for the big guy and one day, hopefully, work for numero uno, ME! I worked on a piece taken from a friends photograph and was inspired by some old style pop art and it was fairly well received. I've thought about exploring that avenue some more but definitely moving to canvas. I know once I find my own place to live then it's going to be a definite because then I will have the space.
Speaking of (this blog is getting longer than I had anticipated) I've recently thought about buying a house again. Granted it won't happened any time soon because of a few reasons in my life, but I thought about what my ultimate house look like. I can't tell you where I would want a house but I can say I often thought about going back to school to become an architect to design my own house. Then I realized Fuck that, it's too damn long and too expensive to one, just to design my own house and two, the income doesn't warrant that type of a dedication for it would take 7 to 10 years. YEARS! To maybe break $75k a year. But here are a few pictures of what my ideal home would look like.
Since I'm getting close to 1000 words I think I'm going to stop while I'm ahead and go back and throw in some pictures for you to break it all up. Enjoy!
-Pat!
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Why I'm not a Fanboy!
Many of you may know that I took up writing for Unleash the Fanboy a little over a week ago and kind of put Nurdgasmic, my own blog on the back burner. The purpose was to branch out a little and see what other web pages were doing and maybe see what I could bring to the table in exchange for also getting my name out there a little. I'm on here to basically tell you that I am no longer writing for Unleash the Fanboy.
I was only there for a week and submitted four articles, three of which I shared on my facebook. The one I didn't share was my first editorial. The Editor in Chief asked for someone to submit an article over why we haven't seen a Disney's Gargoyle's live action movie and it is this article that lead to my decision to part ways.
Unleash the Fanboy has a different style than my own that they definitely try to cultivate with in their writers. I'm not saying it's a bad style, but it's not mine.
So I shared this article to close friends rather than publicly and was told "I can definitely tell that's not your writing" and "I wanted to close article shortly after I started reading it."
In short, rather than feeling like I was wasting their time by submitting articles that didn't meet their style and writing articles only to have my voice changed (I'm an artist so that's VERY important to me) I decided to walk away.
For those who want to read how the blog was intended to read, you can find that here on Nurdgasmic. For those who want to read how it reads on Unleash the Fanboy, you can find it here.
Overall, it was quite the learning experience and I wish we didn't clash style wise. Unleash the Fanboy is a great website and everyone I dealt with were great also. I wish them all the best. I hope that one day our paths can cross again.
At the end of the day (or beginning in this case) I guess I am what I am. I'm not a Fanboy, just a Nurd!
-Pat!
Oh yeah, back to my regularly scheduled ventures. ;)
I was only there for a week and submitted four articles, three of which I shared on my facebook. The one I didn't share was my first editorial. The Editor in Chief asked for someone to submit an article over why we haven't seen a Disney's Gargoyle's live action movie and it is this article that lead to my decision to part ways.
Unleash the Fanboy has a different style than my own that they definitely try to cultivate with in their writers. I'm not saying it's a bad style, but it's not mine.
So I shared this article to close friends rather than publicly and was told "I can definitely tell that's not your writing" and "I wanted to close article shortly after I started reading it."
In short, rather than feeling like I was wasting their time by submitting articles that didn't meet their style and writing articles only to have my voice changed (I'm an artist so that's VERY important to me) I decided to walk away.
For those who want to read how the blog was intended to read, you can find that here on Nurdgasmic. For those who want to read how it reads on Unleash the Fanboy, you can find it here.
Overall, it was quite the learning experience and I wish we didn't clash style wise. Unleash the Fanboy is a great website and everyone I dealt with were great also. I wish them all the best. I hope that one day our paths can cross again.
At the end of the day (or beginning in this case) I guess I am what I am. I'm not a Fanboy, just a Nurd!
-Pat!
Oh yeah, back to my regularly scheduled ventures. ;)
Sunday, February 3, 2013
SDCC 2013
The stage is nearly set for me to return to the San Diego International Comic Con (SDCC)!
I first went to SDCC back in 2008 and I had a blast. Comic Con was something that I had never really experienced before. Sure, I have been to comic conventions local to home but nothing was like this. It was huge and just blew my mind.
Five years later I am making preparations to go back to SDCC. I have big dreams of my 2013 SDCC experience.
Every year SDCC puts out a souvenir book and this year has a several themes that I plan on submitting for; 50th Anniversary of Marvel Superheroes: The Avengers, The X-Men, and Doctor Strange, h Anniversary of Doctor Who, 75th Anniversary of Superman, and the one that hits the hardest,
10th Anniversary of Aspen Comics.
See, 5 years ago when I really started to pursue my interest in becoming a comic artist one of my favorite artists of all time was one by the name of Michael Turner. Co-creator of Wichblade, creator of Fathom, and founder of Aspen Comics. I always wanted to meet him in person and saw SDCC as my opportunity. Days before SDCC 2008 Michael Turner passed away. At SDCC they had a signature book for his family and of course I had signed it and left a note for the family. For the life of me I cannot remember what I wrote. I look forward to working on this submission to pay tribute to a wonderful artist who was taken from this world too soon.
On my big plate of things to do before SDCC I'm finally putting together my manga, which I've said a year or so ago, but this time everything is finally falling into place and last time I didn't have what I have now, a place to start. So what I have planned is kind of a precursor or entry into the story as well as kind of an ashcan comic in the back showcasing character designs that I've worked up and to show where the story is going. I'm shooting for about 36 pages plus ashcan so round out to about 40 - 45 pages. With said book will be contact information for people to provide feedback. So Comic Con 2013, I'm releasing Eichi; Genesis.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Hello 2013!
So this is awkward, first blog of 2013.
I originally wrote a blog a couple of weeks ago for a year end 2012 but the more I wrote it, and rewrote it, and rewrote it, I found out that there wasn't much to tell. I came back to work with my old mud logging job, I got a new truck, and aside from that, there wasn't much else to tell. Nothing spectacular happened. Artistically nothing was there so you didn't see much of this blog last year.
So now here we are in 2013 and I've got some big plans this year.
I really wanted to be debt free by the end of 2013 and so far I'm off to a good start by wiping out about $4000 in January alone. Not gonna lie, when I'm not at work I'm gonna be home sitting on my ass all January and maybe February. Honestly right now I'd rather be spending more time at work than I would anywhere else. Gotta make money.
Secondly I decided I'm going to live a bit of a healthier life style this year. I've been off to a rocky start but hey, at least it's a start. I've pretty much decided to cut back on a few things, most notably McDonalds and any kind of candy which sucks because I'm a huge sucker for fast convenient food I don't have to cook and I have a sweet tooth. I'm also going to take up jogging when I get home and blah blah blah..... yeah, I don't wanna hear about this either.
Moving on, and this is where the fun starts, I told myself a couple years ago that I was going to take a vacation. At the time I had just been dumped by my girlfriend and life was on a bit of a down swing despite the fact that I had a bunch of friends, one notably, to lean on, but I had to do something for me. I had to just find some place to go and disconnect from everyone and everything and just relax. This year I'm taking that vacation (Shhh.. my boss doesn't know yet) and what better vacation is more me than Comic Con? As of this posting all I need to do is buy tickets and reserve the hotel and I'm golden. Oh yeah, and ask for the time off, but I'm still 7 months out.
So now we all know what this mean, it's Comic Con season so what am I going to do? Not nothing like the last several years. This year I have plans to be in the souvenir book, hand out printed copies of my own work, and if I an fit a portfolio review in here and there then I will be happy BUT... I'm not counting on a portfolio review because I just threw thought of that one as I'm typing. That's a lot of work that I don't have time for.
Progress is being made on getting some of my works to print. Eichi for starters. I'm buying a huge printer from a friend and hope to soon be printing my own works at home. This also helps because I plan to have sketch book works to hand out at Comic Con.
A while back I posted up a hastily drawn "fan comic" scenario that I wanted to work on and asked people for opinions. The response I got was disappointing at best but I'm decided to push it forward the other day. What was the scenarios? My take on TMNT or as someone suggested to me MOTU vs Thundercats. I would LOVE to do them both. The TMNT project was to be in contrast to the announced Michael Bay movie that has since been cancelled. In light of the new animated cartoon, which is done REALLY well by the way, I've decided to move on with MOTU vs Thundercats to start. Both MOTU and Thundercats are rich with lore and to work with one is a nerd dream come true but to find a way to put the two together is just unimaginable. This project puts a huge smile on my face. I loved both as a kid and as an adult still enjoy them both. I've got a few teaser designs in my head I hope to put to paper today.
I'm horrible at taking pictures. I hardly ever take them and when I do I post so few. That being said, with my new ventures, I've decided to make use of my instagram account. So rather than just surfing and trolling other peoples pictures I'm going to become part of the masses and use instagram. Only mine won't be to just take pictures of food. Instead on my instagram you will find pictures of pens and pencils. ;)
-Pat!
....and I was going to add pictures to this blog but uploading isn't working. Oh well.
I originally wrote a blog a couple of weeks ago for a year end 2012 but the more I wrote it, and rewrote it, and rewrote it, I found out that there wasn't much to tell. I came back to work with my old mud logging job, I got a new truck, and aside from that, there wasn't much else to tell. Nothing spectacular happened. Artistically nothing was there so you didn't see much of this blog last year.
So now here we are in 2013 and I've got some big plans this year.
I really wanted to be debt free by the end of 2013 and so far I'm off to a good start by wiping out about $4000 in January alone. Not gonna lie, when I'm not at work I'm gonna be home sitting on my ass all January and maybe February. Honestly right now I'd rather be spending more time at work than I would anywhere else. Gotta make money.
Secondly I decided I'm going to live a bit of a healthier life style this year. I've been off to a rocky start but hey, at least it's a start. I've pretty much decided to cut back on a few things, most notably McDonalds and any kind of candy which sucks because I'm a huge sucker for fast convenient food I don't have to cook and I have a sweet tooth. I'm also going to take up jogging when I get home and blah blah blah..... yeah, I don't wanna hear about this either.
Moving on, and this is where the fun starts, I told myself a couple years ago that I was going to take a vacation. At the time I had just been dumped by my girlfriend and life was on a bit of a down swing despite the fact that I had a bunch of friends, one notably, to lean on, but I had to do something for me. I had to just find some place to go and disconnect from everyone and everything and just relax. This year I'm taking that vacation (Shhh.. my boss doesn't know yet) and what better vacation is more me than Comic Con? As of this posting all I need to do is buy tickets and reserve the hotel and I'm golden. Oh yeah, and ask for the time off, but I'm still 7 months out.
So now we all know what this mean, it's Comic Con season so what am I going to do? Not nothing like the last several years. This year I have plans to be in the souvenir book, hand out printed copies of my own work, and if I an fit a portfolio review in here and there then I will be happy BUT... I'm not counting on a portfolio review because I just threw thought of that one as I'm typing. That's a lot of work that I don't have time for.
Progress is being made on getting some of my works to print. Eichi for starters. I'm buying a huge printer from a friend and hope to soon be printing my own works at home. This also helps because I plan to have sketch book works to hand out at Comic Con.
A while back I posted up a hastily drawn "fan comic" scenario that I wanted to work on and asked people for opinions. The response I got was disappointing at best but I'm decided to push it forward the other day. What was the scenarios? My take on TMNT or as someone suggested to me MOTU vs Thundercats. I would LOVE to do them both. The TMNT project was to be in contrast to the announced Michael Bay movie that has since been cancelled. In light of the new animated cartoon, which is done REALLY well by the way, I've decided to move on with MOTU vs Thundercats to start. Both MOTU and Thundercats are rich with lore and to work with one is a nerd dream come true but to find a way to put the two together is just unimaginable. This project puts a huge smile on my face. I loved both as a kid and as an adult still enjoy them both. I've got a few teaser designs in my head I hope to put to paper today.
I'm horrible at taking pictures. I hardly ever take them and when I do I post so few. That being said, with my new ventures, I've decided to make use of my instagram account. So rather than just surfing and trolling other peoples pictures I'm going to become part of the masses and use instagram. Only mine won't be to just take pictures of food. Instead on my instagram you will find pictures of pens and pencils. ;)
-Pat!
....and I was going to add pictures to this blog but uploading isn't working. Oh well.
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