Daily Dose of dutch #14

Nothing much, just popping in to make a note that I'm doing another a follow-up to my previously mentioned Tankadere comic. That one was a 6-page story titled 'Better', this one will be a 60-page comic titled 'Worse', expanding on the same world, surrounding the same characters and core ideas. :)

Here's a painting I just did to lead up to that story:

Life

Stay tuned :)
Wally

Daily Dose of dutch #7

So, I handed in the first major project for Visual Communication this semester. And I shall not go further into it at any cost, for this subject and I have a lot to disagree with each other. Nevertheless, I think the project didn't go too badly. After almost three entire days without sleep, I finished redoing a number of workshops, homework assignments, along with the two final tasks, plus rationales and journal work for them. As much as having a deadline on the first day of mid-semester break sucked, I felt completely relieved after submitting it Monday morning. The following ten hours in bed was inevitable. I deserved that break. (Actually, I didn't. The project was supposed to have been done, breezily, over the course of 7 weeks, I did it in less than 7 days...)

And since it IS mid-semester break, I get to relax a little bit. Well, a little bit more. I'm always so relaxed, if you know what I mean. Enter Jamie and John. The first time I saw their bag a month ago, I was like, 'Holy shit, that is going to last you guys for months!' and John was like, 'Yup.' Yesterday when I arrived at their place (Well, I'm still at their place right now, blogging. Details to come.) and looked at that same bag, I went 'Holy shit, you guys are almost out!' and John was like, 'Yup.'

But I'd arrived here earlier yesterday afternoon before John came home from work, as planned with Jamie, (No, kids. No wrong mental images here please) to have an art jam with him. I know. New term. In our books, an 'art jam' means two or more humongous geeks sitting together drawing and chatting about art and shit like that, then look at each other's works and go 'Challenge accepted.' Jamie was doing his short comics for a contest on deviantART (check out his gallery here) and I did a 'fanart' of one of his original characters (the dude creates original characters for breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper AND the unintended midnight snack. Fantastic story writing too.) This character's name is Sofia, a badass 11 year-old girl:

Just as I was about done with the above piece, and Jamie was done with his contest entry, John came home carrying his gigantic, majestic, logic-defying 27'' LCD screen, adding on to the already impossibly outrageous computer setup he already had (whopping speakers, powerful machine, you get the idea.) He then proceeded to spending the next couple of hours deciding where to place this screen (in conjunction with the smaller one he already had - which was still huge) and which wallpaper would look good running across both screens. To celebrate this occasion, I called for three pizzas. You know me, pizzas and I are best friends. Expensive, but worth it. After all, we were gonna have a night of nights.

Next morning. John made us all coffee and everyone was doing some art while chatting on deviantChat. In that process, I created this character:

Pretty chill dude, eh? Story behind this is that Jamie encouraged me to create a comics alter ego of myself, since John and he both have their own manga universes with interesting characters and backstories. And I thought, why the hell not. So there we have it, a dude smoking a joint, chill as a rock, with futuristic costume and an inter-dimensional travelling pad that are full of win and creepy smiley faces. The Time Traveler.

It was then when they decided to introduce me to Evangelion, a futuristic, beautiful, creative but immensely twisted and antagonistically depressing anime series they've both been fans of since they were kids. So they asked me to stay another night for enlightenment. Well, before enlightenment, we all went to the groceries store to get stuff: Jamie got soda for the night, John got stuff they've run out of at the house (which is quite a shitload of stuff. I doubt they would even think of all that if we hadn't have to go groceries shopping), and I took care of food for the night: beef, broccoli and mushrooms (I don't even have a name for that recipe, but if you must know, there's also lots of red onions, garlic with tomatoes, black pepper and some marinading sauces) It was alright. No one died and the food was swiped clean.

And then, Evangelion Rebuild 1.11 and 2.22 happened. Without prior knowledge about the original series (which, according to the two experts, is far more brutal and plain rude to fans), I watched three hours of this very marvelously crafted world with levels of cool technology and creativity, compelling and deeply troubled characters, hopefulness and hopelessness, rainbows and gore, love and anger, more anger and pure depressing shit that gets you to commit suicide. It was epic. I shall now go back and study this series, from scratch. Challenge accepted.

These past two days have been good indeed, but I still have four days left to go before school restarts. Tune in again for more adventures of Wally the Time Traveler. Bahahaha.

Over and out!

Wally

Daily Dose of dutch #6

Things have been getting busy at school. Getting closer to mid-semester also means deadlines for major assignments are drawing near, and that's definitely not a good thing. I mean, don't get me wrong. I usually try to finish all my projects extra early, so that I get to take longer breaks when they're over and done with, but that's not the case for Visual Communication. Not only is the subject dry as shit, its submission requirement is also a huge load of boring stuff. My next few days of rushing through that dreadful pile of work is going to be hell.

But that aside, last weekend was good. We went to the Republic Bar Saturday afternoon to attend their little music festival One Good Weekend. The bands performing that day were all good. The stuff they wrote was inspiring, original and catchy, and at times really humorous. I also realized playing the violin in an acoustic band is badass. Next goal in my long list of goals: to pick up the violin skill.

I did also spend quite a lot. Around ten raspberry apple orange vodkas, four jagerbombs just to kill brain cells, a pizza and a huge bag of chips. No no, I'm not that irresponsible with money, no. Please don't look at me that way. Okay, yeah. Just a little bit irresponsible, but it doesn't happen every week. Just last weekend. And this. Possibly the next... But there were redeeming points to that pizza: firstly it's a large, shared pizza (so I didn't have to pay for the entire thing), it's also THE BEST pizza I've ever eaten in my ENTIRE life! It's called Peri Peri (which has like chicken and peri peri sauce as indicated by the name and, whatever, it was really fucking gooood)

That same night we also walked around town, past a Subway where I saw this girl who would compete with me every single day at the Art school's library to see who stays longer! Okay, no, it's not a real competition. We don't even know each other, but it feels as though neither of us would leave the library unless the other leaves first. Carly also runs into her all the time, but like me, she never once spoke to her (due to the fact she appears really scary). So we decided, while almost completely wasted, to walk into Subway and order cookies just to make conversation with Mysterious Library Girl (who actually looks pretty damn badass: black eyeliner, two colored hair, beautiful but stone-cold face). So I was like, 'Hi can I get two white chocolates, two double chocolates and one each of the other ones?' and she was like 'Yup. Yup.' - her actions so fast it seemed as though her brain operated faster than normal human beings (omg could she actually be a humanoid? Cyborg? Actual robot? Alien? Vampire?!). Finally I added a 'See you at school', to which she chuckled (like couldn't hold it back) and said 'Yeah'. We exited Subway and were all like 'Holy fucking shit she actually smiled!' and started coming up with name possibilities as we realized we never learned her name. 1095718 names after, we decided Veronica sounded about right. Which is hilarious, because we've been referring to her as Veronica all the time now. Like an urban legend or something.

Art-wise, I didn't really do much last week or this week. There's still a couple of life drawings to show you guys but other than that, nope.

Sims-wise, I've just started on an Ellen Page sim (as promised). I find it quite unsettling that no one seems to want to give feedback on it over at the Creator Feedback Forum (at MTS), even though they read the thread and view the pictures. Anyway, here's some screenshots to show roughly you guys the progress:

Personal notes to certain people:

missroxor should return from holiday! D:

Also, Chris Elliott, you're a great person and you deserve better than the stuff they made you suffer from. I say stand up and be all you can be. You can do it buddy.

To my little friend Ngọc (or Denyse, as she'd prefer to be called from now on), I wish you the best in America. You're still silly as fuck, but your potential is limitless. You will do well if you hang around the right people. Whenever there's anything troubling you, do not bottle it up. Find someone you trust. You'll need them, especially now that you're really far from home. Love you kiddo. :)

Happy belated birthday, Roxanne.

Till next time.

Wally

Daily Dose of dutch #5

Yup, I know. This #5 is over a week after #4. I haven't even maintained this blog for a month yet and I'm already starting to get lazy.

Not.

The reason why I haven't been blogging is because there's been so many awesome things happening continuously, simultaneously, alltheotherly's.

Right, uhhh. Where to start. Last Friday night. (Nope, NOT a Katy Perry song.)

Daily Dose of dutch #4

Hello. It is I, the boy who does not sleep.

Well, I actually do. Long hours too. However, only after some 30 hours awake. But that doesn't really matter much, because I have been productive - churning out paintings and drawings, being constantly on chat and still having a social life. In fact, I am going out to town later today, having drinks with some friends, then going with them and possibly another group of people to a concert. Woohoo! :)

Okay, wait. Let's backtrack a little bit. Chronological order and all.

First of all, the Art-Off contest (mentioned in the previous two updates) is cruising really smoothly. Everyone is so inspired and enthusiastic in creating portraits of their smug mugs :D I've also finished mine:
 
That was done in about 6 hours in pencil and watercolors on A3 paper. I personally am quite satisfied with how the painting turned out. But everyone else did great too! There's stuff I can learn from every single one of their entries. :) Once again, to follow the progress of the contest, check out the official Art-Off thread at MTS.

Residual inspiration from the above contest also helped me conceptualize a new series (probably three two five) of themed watercolor paintings. Thoroughly explaining these concepts, however, would be tedious and confusing and take away all the fun of doing art critic. Therefore I'll just let the paintings do their part. Hopefully my intended messages are delivered well enough.

The first painting was done last night. 5 hours, watercolors on A3 paper. Titled 'The Back-up Singer'

In case you haven't noticed, the guy in the foreground is supposed to be Kanye West

And finally, here are some more sketches from my Thursday Life Drawing class:

The lines and marks made in these sketches were different from the previous set I posted, as the focus was on the figures' volumes rather than their contours this time round.

Also, trolling and goofing around on Skype and #TSS with armiel, dal, Kayla, beautiful missroxor, Morph and Q was massively fun. I look forward to similar sessions in the future. As in, every day. :3

That's all I can think of for now.
Till next time!

Wally

Daily Dose of dutch #3

Hello, netizens!

I actually got some schoolwork done today at the library. While Skyping. Those two things aren't really supposed to be done simultaneously, but somehow they work that way for me. And you know the art contest thing that I mentioned in my previous update? Well it seems to be pretty warmly welcomed: MTS's HystericalParoxysm and Arisuka have both said (on Skype, so don't be 100% hopeful now) that they'd be participating. Beautiful missroxor has bought new pencils just for the occasion and daluved1 has in fact done some serious work, shading and all. \o/ (<-- Apparently, that appears as a really hippy dancing emoticon thing on Skype. Random fact I learned today.) I have also done some quick sketching myself. For more on the contest, visit the official thread: The Art-Off!

However, the second and most important piece of news I've got today is the fact that I have been featured for the second time at MTS! :D And even more importantly, this feature is my Ellie Goulding sim! Words cannot describe how satisfied I am knowing my precious little project was well-appreciated. :') If you have missed my previous post about this upload at MTS, here's the link to it again (after picture):

Ellie Goulding Sim by dutch at MTS

I'm also going to start on an Ellen Page sim. She's extremely cute. And her name starts with 'Ell'. Lol.

In other, less important news, it's getting kinda hot again here in Hobart, even though it could get as low as 0 degree Celsius last week. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets freezing again next week. Weird weather is weird. It does help the flowers blossom, though.

Are those actually cherry blossoms? I don't even know. :/

And that's about it for today's update, folks.

Tune in next time! ;)

Wally

Daily Dose of dutch #1

Hi all. How are you today?

Felt I needed to do a blog post, since I finally took documentation shots of my Life Drawing class sketches (which is kind of important, considering how all those pencil and charcoal works on super shitty paper will soon be smudged away) and some other pretty cool photos that speak volumes of how my life has been like for the past couple weeks. So I guess this is sort of like a photo journal thing, yeah?

First of all, the most basic and also crucial dutch-related thing you should know is that I have a completely fucked up sleep pattern. Take yesterday, for example. I had a lecture at eleven in the morning, and went to bed (for the previous night!) at 7 AM. Set the alarm for 9:30 AM which did snooze for about half an hour. Ended up getting up at eleven... in the evening.
...
I know. Kids, please don't follow my example. Not because that's not good for your health, but because you can't miss lessons and still get Distinctions. (Like I do! >:D)

Talk about healthy lifestyles. Or lack thereof. Know what I did first thing after getting up at 11PM? Ordered two of THIS.

Domino's Double Beef Bacon Pizza. Hell to the yeah.

I wouldn't usually call for pizzas just like that. No. I was actually like in bed, went on the internet on my phone, checked my email, and saw a promotion for delivered traditional pizzas at $9.50 each, that would end in an hour's time. Doesn't happen everyday.

Eaten a pizza (saved the other one for later tonight when I get home)? Full? Good. Time to go to school. At 12 midnight. And no, I'm not that hard-working either. I'm just that broke university student who didn't set up internet at home just for some super laggy connection and a $40-something monthly bill, while campus is five minutes away with fast free internet and internal heating.

<Fasts forward through some 7 hours of chatting and movie reviewing and other time-wasting stuff>

It was now around eight in the morning, and I had Life Drawing class at nine, so about time I got my ass moving. It's winter in July here, so if I might add, it's absolutely freezing at this hour in the morning, despite the deceiving pretty sunrise. Proof:

Sunrise over the school field. Pretty, yes?

Ohhhhh no. Look a little closer. The green grass has turned frost white over night.

More deceiving natural beauty of Tasmania (bet you've never heard of it)

 Good photos, I reckon. Also made me 10 minutes late for class. Plus my sketches this week were uglier than the ones I did last week. And I had even less sleep last week. Simple deduction: Must sleep less next week in order to draw better.

Documentation is a crucial component of being at the art school, since that's part of how they'll assess your progress at the end of each semester. I figured since these are all quick (between one and ten minutes) charcoal or pencil sketches on really low quality paper, they'd get all smudged and dirty after a short while. Should take those documentation shots as soon as possible. Better safe than sorry.

Also, this just in! The US version of Ellie Goulding's number one hit 'Starry Eyed' (not to be mistaken with my personal favorite 'The Writer'). I personally prefer the original UK version. Displayed her character much better and just packed more energy. This new version, although an absolute eye-candy and Ellie drop-dead gorgeous as ever, seems to lack life. The directing wasn't all that great and I must admit Ellie herself didn't use her best facial expressions either. To each his own, though. :)



Anyway. I'm hungry as hell right now. So I guess it's time to go home to lovely pizza. And some (almost non-existent) bedtime.

Be back soon!

Wally