The Delusional Delights of Doomz

Yup, I’m in bed putting up a quick post from the BlackBerry before I take a nap. It’s been a long day: little sleep + team building day + going out with friend = exhausted Casey. But when I awake in a few hours, it’s back to wrapping up that calendar.

Things to expect in upcoming blog posts:

* Getting reacquainted with my Wacom Intuos 4
* The origins of OLA and what they mean now
* Sketchdumps like whoa!

Until next time, I leave you with a sketch of what I drew tonight @ Jack Astor’s (I’ll rotate it when I wake up).

–case p.

So here I am, finding out that I have something of an extension to get this calendar done. When I say “extension”, I mean until 6:30 pm tomorrow evening. When I say “until 6:30 pm tomorrow evening”, I mean that’s when the client wants the calendar in their hands, ready to deliver to the intended recipient. When I say that, I repeat what I said last night…

…I’m screwed.

Now, it’s not ALL bad. I did manage to wrap up those 12 sketches last night – now what needs doing is getting them digitally inked and prepped to be put into the “final package”. Just gotta keep focused long enough to do it, and make sure I get enough rest for a “cluster day” tomorrow, where I meet our Chief Information Officer at work for the first time, learn about our I&IT cluster and what we do, etc. Then have the bi-weekly OLA business meeting after dropping the goods off to my client. Yes, this is how I roll. I will earn the sleep I get tomorrow night.

I was thinking lately about the things I’d like to have as an artist.

THEN I thought about the things I already DO have and SHOULD use.

I think I’ll take some time to put both together and see if I can get some input from everyone on what’s good, what’s not and how you best see me using things.

But anyhoo, there’s a calendar to be made, and it’s not going to do it itself.

Peace y’all – keep drawing!

–case p.

You ever have those days where you wish you weren’t “that guy(/girl) who draws”? I mean, don’t get me wrong; I love drawing – I wouldn’t be who I am without it – but… okay, let me explain the situation…

So one of my old jobs has requested my services – my old manager is leaving for another location, so they want to give her a going-away present that’s very individual. So they called me a while back to ask me to do this, telling me that they’d discuss with me further in September to figure out the details. Which was fine and all… if they’d called me back at my correct number. Instead, they were trying to get me on a work number that no longer applied to me. The only reason why they were able to get a hold of me is because my friend who still works there sent me a text saying that they still wanted me to put this together for them.

• They sent the text Thursday
• They want it by Monday.
• It’s a calendar of 12 images.
• Plus a cover.
• Thursday I was at band practice.
• Friday they sent me the details.
• Friday I was out with friends.
• Yesterday was a housewarming for the girlfriend, and I spent a good chunk of the day cleaning.
• I wrote this blog entry in a notebook while I was at a Quarterly Business Meeting for church after the service, which I’d already gone into early (tired as heck) because I was operating the sound board

Yeah… I’m screwed.

In other news, I’m getting a little revved up as of late to really getting FNC up and running again – I think it’s partly due to seeing this piece by Aaron; it reminded me that drawing cities wasn’t nearly as difficult as I was making it to be – sometimes you just gotta go and do the damn thing.

Anyway, I’ve got a calendar to do with my name on it.

Until next post,

–case p.

There’re some nights where there’s just nothing really to do. You’re tired, no one’s chatting on your IM, nothing you wanna check out on the Internet, you’ve read your manga, watched your anime, played your games, no comments to follow up, and you’re not motivated enough to do so anyway.

These are the nights where you just sleep early.

G’night, OLAgents.

–case p.

Ha, I’m so still working on the character creation one – it’s in draft mode. In other news, when I haven’t been out sampling my friends’ pizzas in a pizza challenge or doing up the church thing, here’s what I’ve been up to this weekend in the name of OLA:

• Researching the legal stuff one needs to know about running specific types of events in Mississauga (please notice the degree of vague-ness so that I spill the beans about NOTHING)
• Planning out the development of project management documents for OLA (so that when OLA gets off of the ground, not only are our butts covered, but we’ll have everything documented just in case someone asks us a REALLY HARD question)
• Thinking about what OLA would be legally-speaking

Yup, lots of earth-shattering thinking going on over here. Going to the most minute level of detail is something of a hobby of mine. (Okay, that’s a lie – it’s just how I’m trained through school and former jobs.)

Anyway, your post is coming soon. Just been busy.

But I haven’t forgotten!

Off to work,

–case p.

Hello all, a PSA from your friendly neighbourhood Doomz.

Do not restart Firefox when you have an empty blog post open. It will save over the last thing you posted if that thing was posted after the time when you first opened the blank screen.

Hence, post 0008: Apologies, is never more.

We’ll miss you, 0008. You really knew how to light up the room.

–case p.

…it’s only a day awayyyyy!

You’ll all get a proper blog post in the morning.

To put it briefly,

Casey + 3 hours sleep + wine = no blog post tonight.

In the morning, we’ll talk about my approach to character design with a new “villain” I’ve been trying to rough out.

Peace out to everyone,

–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.