The Delusional Delights of Doomz

…you see, I WOULD make a blog post tonight, but… you know… Scribblenauts came out today, and uh… yeah.

There goes MY night.

–case p.

About to grab a pizza with double pepperoni! Yeaaaah boyeeee!

Today after running a number of errands I didn’t necessarily want to do (but were good to get out of the way, nonetheless), I started working on what will be my website. I was chatting with mi hermano de otro padre German earlier about the fact that what was stopping me from getting my website done before now is the fact that I didn’t have a clear vision for what I was trying to accomplish. So instead of taking that approach, I figure I’ll just start throwing in all the things I think are relevant and just go from there. Other than having some issues finding the embed codes for individual sites I use (right now, I’m looking at you, Flickr!) it was going pretty smoothly, but as usual, I got sidetracked. From writing that first line until now, about four hours have passed. I don’t even think y’all are getting a sketch today, but you shall soon. I’ll explain why.

Today I:

• swapped my hard drives around so that I created one 1.25 TB drive in one enclosure and had access to all of my stuff at the same time
• combined all of my random text files all over the place into one MASSIVE mind map
• found lots of old ideas for my website
• found lot of sketches that I should really combine into a sketchdump

So you see? I’m not up to nothing. Promise

–case p.

World, I’m tired of:

• Too many birthdays to celebrate
• Too many going-away parties
• Too many expectations of chipping in for overly extravagant situations
• Too much costing too much too much of the time

Yes, I work a job that pays pretty well. But I work hard – I work DAMN hard. And things just keep coming up. My weekends are full of events all over the map that require my time, effort and dollars… and I think I’ve reached my limit. Art – oftentimes it costs nothing. The resources I use are my imagination and the tools I choose to use to create. The return I get from what I invest is more often than not guaranteed to be what I expected. I just can’t live a life that isn’t reflective of who I am anymore. I can feel it chipping away at my sanity, and I think I’m having no more of it.

But back to what this blog’s really about with that rant out of the way. Why do I draw? Funny story: last night I was in the Yorkville area of town with the girlfriend and some of her crew, and as the night progressed (literally, as we were at Remy’s for 6-7 hours) I busted out the pencil, some paper, and while the red wine was knocked back, the sketches went a-flyin. Our waitress, Celeste, was very complimentary, but what was surprising was that some hot chick (though not as hot as the girlfriend, obviously) randomly made her way out of the crowd and suddenly appeared to my right:

Her: “Are you a designer?!”
Tipsy Casey: “Kinda sorta – I tend to draw tons of different things!”

We talked a little about how she has numerous friends who’re designers and whatnot, and hopefully she’d see my work on the cover of Vogue in the future or something.

Yes. Vogue. Let me clarify.

So when I busted out the drawings, what had been on top of the stack this time were photos of runway models and their crazy outfits. So I began sketching away as I do with anything else. Now, let’s translate this into a mathematical equation:

Yorkville hangout (i.e. Place where people want to act richer than they actually are) + drawing pictures that make you look like a stylist (looks like Cosmo magazine has a purpose after all!) + copious amounts of alcohol (which, of course, is instrumental in many equations in life) = girls coming to talk to you. Learn from me, men. I will show you things in life which you have never imagined.

So right now I’m at Marben Restaurant on Wellington just at the post-meal bill-waiting. The food was alright – your standard small portions, costly place-type fare – but the dessert was pretty interesting; “home-made” sorbet in the following flavours:

• Strawberry Mint
• Lime Basil
• Blueberry Cinammon

The Sorbets served with Marben's prix fixe menu...

Blueberry Cinnamon was whatev (for I don’t like blueberries and rarely eat anything cinnamon), to me the strawberry mint tasted like… strawberry sorbet… but the lime basil – SO GOOD. They took two of my favourite flavours and combined it into something EPIC. It makes me want to learn how to make my own sorbet so I can make MORE.

Anyway, we got back home in one piece and I’m in dire need of rest, so I’ll close this chapter shortly, I suppose. I’m thinking perhaps next blog I should just upload a ton of sketches and no words? Would y’all like that? Are you tired of my verbose nature?

Holla at a brotha.

Until then, I remain…

–case p.

Today is one of my groggier days. After staying up late sketching and just cleaning a few things up in general, I’ve been definitely feeling the effects this morning. I didn’t end up buying those DS games last night, so I’ll venture across the street to the Eaton Centre and see if I can get my hands on some copies. Taking a look at the current to-purchase list, we have:

*Drawn to Life
*Locke’s Quest
*Raynox DCR-250 Super Macro Lens (import from Japan!)
*Macbook Pro quad-core laptop (doesn’t exist yet)
*iPod Touch with camera (also doesn’t exist yet)
*replacement parts for a 5th gen iPod Video 80 GB
*SmartDraw 2010 (expensive software that will be used to make stronger documentation for OLA)

But in all honesty, you know what I’m starting to find? The longer that you go without something, the more you realize that you don’t really need it to do what you do. Yes, it would be NICE to have certain things, but how did you do what you did without them? You just found a way, right?

[Lunch Break]

Both Drawn to Life and Locke’s Quest are discontinued – I did not expect this! It’s almost as if God is telling me not to spend any money on big items… no iPod Touch, no DS games, no Macbook Pro… I didn’t even go for the lens after looking it up… wonder what this all means….

No, seriously, let’s stop and look at this – the only item on the list that’s easily accessible to me and that I can justify spending dollars on is the one where I actually know that it will have a definite effect on what I can provide to OLA services-wise. Funny how that works out – this in combination with the talk I had with my friend yesterday kind of make me think that I should be making OLA a bit more a priority! Hmm….

Despite the fact that I like to work around the same hours as such notorious characters as the Brothers Shible and The Kid (all born in September, coincidentally enough), here’s a public service announcement for y’all – get your sleep. Not because it’s good for you or any B.S. like that – mostly because without it, the day goes a WHOLE lot longer. I need to go catch up on sleep JUST to have enough energy to catch up on all the work I didn’t do TODAY. Vicious cycle, y’all – vicious cycle.

It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to really hang out with the OLA regulars, so I feel as if there’s not much I can offer in my blog right now. I should follow my friend NJ’s advice and go back to basics – to the foundation of it all – that’s where I’ll find the answers I need to grow and move further. In my role, I get to play the bad guy – the guy who makes sure that OLA is doing what it’s supposed to do – and with that, I’ve gotta make sure I keep myself on track to lead an example – right, guys ?

Anyway, I’m off to make some beer in a bit (yes, I did say make and beer in the same sentence), so let me wrap this up.

Today’s sketch is partly what kept me up last night (well, that and the latest episode of Bleach with a filler arc that’s actually been worth watching so far) – it was one of the few non-celebrity ads I seemed to have lying around, and I’m hoping to use all the celebrity pics for another piece at a later date. So… check it out!

Sketch of a lady from an ad - looking for crits!

I’ll upload an actual scan when I get home. (Currently out for Greek food.)

EDIT: So I’ve uploaded it, and I’m not exactly liking it all that much yet – any crits or comments that anyone has would be much appreciated. Thanks

So that’s bout it bout it for now. This weekend, I think I’ll take a good look at all of the OLA-related stuff sititng in my lap so I have more… relevant stuff to write about.

Peace, homefries!

–case p.

Ah, I’ve finally managed to get a one-up on Rene! So here I am, finally having figured out how to use the Wordpress for BlackBerry app to put my posts for OLA together – this will let me get a lot more done while I’m out and about, which is awesome.

Current location: Yonge subway station, about to board the eastbound train to meet a friend. It’s packed, but not nearly as bad as the northbound train was.

No sketching today as of yet, but I reflected a bit upon the skills I’m developing at work and how they might be able to relate to OLA. The connections are loose at best at the moment, but work with me for a moment here.

Let’s take a look at what’s been going on with work lately:

*It’s a project management office, which means I’m further developing my skills in the area of project management, a skill we’ll need to efficiently and effectively get OLA off the ground
*mail merging: this will be a good skill to have if at some point we need to write standard letters, emails, other documents, etc. on a regular basis and we carry most of our OLA information in one place, such as a…
*database: I’ve been in charge of making sure that our Access database is up to date and that any changes are made to the database when necessary – when we get larger and need database maintenance to make sure that our records are intact, I’ll be there
*financial: there’s a pretty strong financial controllership component to my job as well, which will obviously come into play as OLA gets bigger and we want to do more with it

Hopefully they’re all skills I can use for OLA in good times and bad

In other news, since the MacBook Pro I want came up to $2850 (including AppleCare, the iPod Touch I’d need to buy for the student deal, student discount AND the gift cards I have – though I should re-calculate without the iPod Touch – AND maybe it’s a sign that I should wait until mobile quad-core tech is developed, since dual-core is SO 2001) and Apple disappointingly didn’t include a camera in their new iPod Touches as expected in their keynote release today (it went to the Nano? WTF!), I’ll be copping Drawn to Life and Locke’s Quest for the DS tonight (if I can find copies) in preparation for the release of Scribblenauts next Wednesday (which I’ve already paid for)! I’m looking forward to using all sorts of crazy item combinations to beat levels. I hope that this game will be as epic as the speculators make it out to be My DS hasn’t been getting too much time in the spotlight lately, so this’ll be a welcome change.

In other tech news for myself, I’ve gotta replace/fix my iPods (yup, plural – one original, then another for when the first broke… but I never bothered to fix the first one… oops). One’s got a busted screen and is still under warranty at Future Shop, so we’ll see how that goes; and for the other – wait for it – wait for itttt – I’ll be fixing MYSELF using this site:iFixit – I know, right?! Epic win! The Internet is making us self-sufficient when it comes to services that we’d often rely on experts to do for us. I’m hoping to keep one for myself and give the other to my girlfriend, but we’ll see how it all turns out

Babbling, babbling, babbling.

Oh noes, a serious part!

I’ve been told that I’m the kind of person who tends to always keep certain things to myself – no matter who it is, there’s always certain elements that I choose not to share. This is very true. I have a friend who would like to see me go into business for myself. While I don’t think this is a bad idea at all, to be honest, I’m scared. I don’t know if I’d do well. I don’t know if I’d ever get to a point where I’d consider myself successful at what I’d do. It would be a massive risk to take, and I don’t know if I’m ready for that. Though, truth be told, I can’t see with any clarity where the path in my life is leading me right now, so perhaps it’s a step that needs to be taken. Any thoughts?

By the way, I guess I ended up doing a sketch AFTER all:

2 Girls, 1 Sheet.

Right, so we just wrapped up a game of Catan: Cities & Knights and Sarah and I are walking home. Welcome to a random day in the life of Casey E. Palmer. Hope you enjoyed your stay!!!

Sincerely,

–case p.

Don’t you love those moments where you see something that you just HAVE to draw? This happened on the subway this morning with me, with a dude sitting down who definitely had his style coming correct. Black dude who was well-groomed, dressed well and reading a pamphlet on managing money. Mad cool. But it was morning rush hour, so I couldn’t take a seat and sketch him out there and then. Instead, there I was staring like a fool as I tried to memorize as many details about him as possible. Facial hair. The style of links his chain had. Did his shirt have a pattern to it or not? This is what I came up with in the end:

Dude with afro from the TTC

This is going to be one of my longer days. As I’m typing this, it’s 5:30 at work with no light at the end of the tunnel. But I will eventually go home in the hope that I can work on some more OLA-related stuff. You guys might not realize it, but there’s a LOT going on in the background that a team of us are trying to accomplish in the name of OLA so that we can make a big name for the group in 2010. I feel I’ve gotten a bit off track with my fair share, so I’m looking to get back to putting some things together there. This will include some infrastructure for future OLA projects, some work on my own personal projects and just trying to help others get to the point where they want to be. The more I can get life to calm down, the more time I can spend getting my OLA stuff to the place where I’d like it to be

[Doomz Note: I left work at 8. 11 hours! Woo!]

Hm, note to self – we’re going to need to make the site mobile-friendly if I’m going to be posting stuff daily. I’m not always gonna be around!

Anyway, that’s all you’re getting for now. I didn’t do anything too elaborate today art-wise. I went to work, sketched a little at lunch, came home and crashed. Yeah, that’s right. That was my day. Ha!

Have a good one peops,

–case p.

Whassap y’all – I hope the long weekend was productive and that y’all weren’t relaxing TOO much! It’s just after Labour Day, and we all know what that means – it’s GO TIME! Back to school for some of us, the last cottage weekend for others, but for me , I took the name of the holiday rather literally and busted my ass on trying to get a lot out of the way.

This involved things such as:

• scanning in a ton of half-completed, likely-never-to-be-finished sketches
• uploading a number of photos that have just been sitting around doing nothing
• using FreeMind to develop a mind map of all the random ideas that I often seem to have floating around
• sketching like a fiend so that I could get rid of a ton of reference material that I seem to carry with me EVERYWHERE

And then Damn Terry Dam went and said, “Reference material is always a good thing to carry”.

Okay, yes, I totally agree with this statement, but what I think Terry didn’t realize is who exactly he’s talking to. When it comes to getting a job done, I tend to get a little OCD at times and really go over the top.

A couple of years ago, I’d put the word out to a few communities that I was part of online that I was looking for that I was looking for donations of old magazines so I could slice pages out of them for reference material. This was gonna be on TOP of the magazines I was already getting rid of for the same reason! I figured I’d just be able to draw things out one page at a time to improve my skill and the range of things I’d know how to draw.

Great plan, but I severely underestimated the response I’d receive from my peers!

This is the box that holds all the reference material I gathered from that exercise:

The Big Ol' Box of Reference Materials

So as you can see, it’s quite a bit. In fact, I had problems even managing to squeeze it all in said box. So I’ve got my work cut out for me as I’ve now gotten to a point where I’m actually attempting to go through the box and USE the reference. My method goes a little bit like this:

1. Grab handful of sheets from box
2. Stuff in whatever knapsack I’m carrying with me that day
3. Pull a sheet out on the subway/at the girlfriend’s/during lunch
4. Sketch like a madman
5. Recycle reference page
6. Return to step 3 until all sheets are gone
7. Then, return to step 1

Eventually, I will get through this box, and at that point, I’m hoping that my work will be far more awesome. But until then, I’ll follow Damn Terry Dam’s advice.

–case p.