Issues With the World

My rants about things that I think about during my days.

8/25/2009

Summer is coming to a close

Posted by Gemini

So earlier today I got my "official" Driver's License. I thought I'd be ecstatic about it, but now I'm kind of staring at it wondering what it really does for me. Because my parents have basically told me that they won't let me drive by myself unless I absolutely need to. Like I'll have to once school starts. So... my license doesn't do me any good until my parents let it.

I will say this. The thing is certainly interesting to look at. It's got dogwood flowers all over the background. How cool is that?! and not only that whoever did it got clever with their typography and made the stems out of lettering. Which you don't even notice at first because it's so very well done. Bravo to whoever did I say. I'd love to find out who the artist was.

Even so. Summer is coming to a close and that means less and less days I have totally to myself. Depressing, yet I still can't find the motivation to do much of anything when it comes to my forums, my art, my roleplays, and even this in some cases. I had to push myself to type this up, believe it or not. I feel like all I want to do is doodle randomly all day. Who cares if my art gets any better or anything! Yeah I'm totally losing my conviction to do anything. Hopefully school will start that back up again, or else I may end up falling in a really bad hole.

One thing to look up on though. I do have the IDEAS to do things. So once I get my motivation kicked back in, I will be like.. some kind of machine working on so many different projects, like you have no idea. Hopefully homework won't become overly much right away so that way I'll still have some time to do things.

I'm worried though too with summer coming to a close. (I did mention that this blog post my go in so many directions Jah?). I have schoolwork now that I really need to get done. Problem is the last question, and then the writing I need to do in the book can not be done until I re-read the book, even if I'm just skim reading. But I can't find the conviction to do that either. It might come to the point where I'm doing it the weekend before school starts, which won't be a good idea. I'll probably get yelled at by my parents. Oh well.

Too many things on my mind I say. Too many unrelated things that I'm able to pack into one blog post. Hopefully those of you that are my readers do not get too lost whilst reading this one.



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8/19/2009

Immense Boredom

Posted by Gemini

I'm bored. Like... you don't even know how bored I am. Particularly because I have no reason to be bored! If anything I feel like my summer projects are piling up around me and I have NO motivation to do them!

One particular project I'm half way between panicing on myself and completely abandoning it! Only thing is abandoning it would mean a lot of awful let down friends because of all the planning and going ons I've done so far with this one. I originally had the idea that we might be able to get it finished by October, but now I'm thinking not. I might end up telling my whole "Pre-lim" group, as I call them, that I'm officially not working on any of the larger more complex sections that need to get done until a month or so. Simply because I feel what's happened is that, I've had to work on it and work on it, and it's been the main thing, (other than digital art) that I've been focused on, and so it's kind of... found it's place of boring me. So I need to back off of it some. Perhaps even after backing off, even for a little while, we may still be able to make it by October. Octobers still a month and half off. We shall see.

Now this wouldn't be so bad as I have drawing and writing to preoccupy me, but these things have begun to bore me as well! Drawing particularly has hit a low for me. Especially drawing in my usual style. To the point that I think I've been getting better at drawing lately simply because my old "always draw like this" habits became boring to me so I felt like changing it up, and it made it better. Just today I started sketching a semi-realistic sketch that came out fantastic. I can't wait to finish it all the way out, it's going to look cool with the way I've got it in my head!

Which of course this makes me sound like I'm not bored! But I still am! Because that picture won't last me long. I can almost guarantee it won't get finished. and then what?
Oh but of course I've mad myself another project! These sculpey cubes with emoticon faces that I've taken to calling cubicles! I've got nine of them sitting on my computer now. A couple of them have little legs that I gave them, but they actually aren't the cuter ones. and guess what! I've decided to sell them! Another thing to spend my days doing!

But of course I need my parents help. and what do they do after they give me the idea to sell them? Refuse to get me started. Give me reasons selling them won't work out. But now I've got my mind set on that, so I'll probably keep pestering them. Specially after my dad baited me saying it could end up selling so well that it provided for my gas money.

They are awful adorable. Perhaps I'll give them their own blog post once I get the first test auction up. I'll link to it, definitely.



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8/13/2009

Oekaki

Posted by Gemini

I.... I have fallen in love with oekaki. Do not ask me why. I have no idea. I just enjoy sketching my chibi's with a pixel pencil on a small square. and I like doing it better online than I ever would in paint. Not sure why..




As you can see I like having them on kind of a parchment colored background and then inking and shading with darker colors and highlighting with a lighter color than the background. The smaller one you should have seen already in my blog as my user picture. I didn't do it that long ago, since I updated that picture recently.



Any commentors that would like to have one of these of an image or whatever, I'd be happy to oblige. ^^ I've been offering them to everybody since I'm enjoying drawing them and all.

Peace out here.



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8/12/2009

Friends making me Uneasy

Posted by Gemini

I'm excited to go to school. I absolutely cannot wait. And not just because I can drive. I love learning and I love the social atmosphere that comes with going to school. I love my school in particular. The friendly atmosphere there is all the more engaging and welcoming. I miss my friends, the people I know, my classes, some teachers, I just miss it.

But I'm also wary. Mostly of the two friends I had considered my closest. We'd been a team of three, tight and wildly conversational.

Of course towards the end of last year one of these two started opening up about how she had feelings for the other. The other didn't know until until something happened and the one that liked her started crying and avoiding her. It was a disaster either way. Neither would talk to other at the last couple of weeks of school. I felt split and fully alone. I've always felt alone really. Never had anyone close to me. But that's a subject for another blog post.

Anyways even though they officially 'made-up' and even started talking again they didn't hang out together as much. Which me kind of wander around when usually I'd hang out with the two of them in any free time right before classes or during lunch or whenever.

During the summer the one that had liked the other had to get a big surgery on her spine, putting metal in back. She has sclerosis I think it was. Bent back. Anyway me and the friend that she had liked ended up going to visit her at her house. Yes the surgery was bad enough that the other friend felt the need to come. Everything seemed fine and dandy then. Just great. We talked fervently just like we used to. It was lovely.

I came home expecting to see them both talking to each other again online as well. They had been talking some, but limitedly, and not at all since she'd gone to the hospital for her operation.

But I come home and seems like over the course of the next couple of days only the one who had been liked talks to me on the forums we hung out at, and then neither of them seem to be around anywhere at all. The only place I find that they still seem to be alive is twitter, but even there they seem to just talk to themselves. I even said something on there to one and they didn't say a thing back. Not that I should necessarily expect them too because of how offhand what I said was, but after the lack in communication in any other way just makes me all the more wary.

In the end it makes the situation seem like it might not be that great when I get to school. Perhaps I start keeping to myself more. Either to myself or to a couple of other friends I have that I feel a little closer too, though not nearly as close as I used to feel to these too.

Just my issues with the world -


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8/11/2009

Coldplay makes me Think

Posted by Gemini

Currently I've started listening to songs by coldplay and one that really, really struck me was their song, Politik. Click the Related link button to play the song.

Anyway the lyrics really caught my attention. It starts listing off things that the common human requests from 'the world' at large. Kind of a quite song you don't really notice the lyrics at first, so when I really listened to them I was kind of surprised. During almost the entire song it's listing off all these things that humans want and then the chorus kind of contradicts it:

and Open up your eyes....,
Open up your eyes....
" "
Just Open up your eyes.
Which is like saying that all those things that we wish we could just ask for and get, will never get them unless we "Open our Eyes" and realize that we ourselves are the ones that change ourselves or improve ourselves to have the qualities that the song 'requests'.

And then the next thing you kind of notice is of course, the strange spelling of the Politic as Politik.

Well come to find out that's actually the German word for politics. Which kind of says that this whole problem that the song is stating is a world-wide issue. It occurs in all humans. At least that was my first thought. But then I thought about why it would be German of all languages and then I started thinking about the Holocaust.

Wasn't it during the Holocaust that the Nazi's, and Hitler for that matter, were trying to "perfect" their population? They tried to say that those that were part of the Nazi's were totally perfect. Any imperfection was banished to those horrible bunkers. Because there were more than just Jews there. There was anybody that the Nazi's thought to be imperfect.

Which is exactly what the song is saying. Our want to be perfect. and then it tells to open our eyes. We're not perfect. We never will be. And any way that we'd be able to get even a little closer to that perfectness has to come from improvement to ourselves. Not improvements on others, not lying about our imperfectness.

We simply can't be perfect.



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8/10/2009

Names

Posted by Gemini

List of names and short descriptions I might mention within my blog posts:

Maladie - one of two of my closest friends at my arts school. Tad bit crazy/energetic.

Arsenic - Second of the two closest friends I have at my arts school. I almost want to say a bit cynical. Almost. funny.

My crush(Sos) - He's my current crush obviously. Until that changes I will always refer to him as my crush, but he also has his alternate name here just in case. He's an instrumental major at my arts school and I had a class with him in my second year, when I met him.

Bruss - Technology major at the arts school. Mathematical genius. Hobbyists. (As in he makes a hobby of having hobbies). Horribly funny.

One - The only guy in my creative writing class, and consequently the only guy freshman literary major.

Mathematician(Math) - An old crush of mine, considered once my closest friend, Angry at him at the moment.

Miyu - A friend of mine, goes to the arts school for Visual art, very smart.


I will update this as I update my blog, and I will make sure to keep the descriptions as up to date as possible.

 
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8/09/2009

School equals... Freedom?

Posted by Gemini

As strange as it may very well sound, going to school means the start of quite a few freedoms for me. Well more like one freedom that leads to the uncovering of other freedoms.

What is it that I'm suddenly gonna get to do? I get to driver. All on my own. In fact I get my license before the month of August is out. Now, my mother says shes going to let me go drive to my home school highschool (I only go there to take the bus to the school I go to now), one day and then have me come back home, but that's not much of anything. Certainly it's letting me TASTE some freedom. I could go get icecream or something from the gas station that's on the way to the school if I wanted to, and she'd never know. But it's not really the freedom of knowing, HEY I could go to the library right now if I wanted to, and I don't have to go through anyone else first.

Nah. That doesn't start until school does. Which, might I say, I'll start going to the library an awful lot just so I can get away from the watchful eyes of my parents. For example this blog here? Yeah that has to stay hidden from the folks. But with me being able to go to the library whenever I like, I should be able to get in several posts a day. Seeing as here at home I seem to do fine getting in some posts here and there when I feel like they aren't going to be watching as closely for a while.

Gee. I'll be able to go to starbucks or mcdonalds if I wanted. To bad the closest Starbucks is like... twenty minutes from our house or the count high school. Otherwise I consider going there every day after school. AND they have unfiltered internet access, where as the libraries is slightly filtered. Not that the filters should bother me in most cases, but they might get in the way for some things. You never know what they might hit by accident for whatever reason.

What's nice is this freedom also means that I can volunteer at the library, take myself there, and then leave when I want. So I could bring my laptop with me then, and then I've got an excuse on the weekends to go too!

And the last little thing is a job. I don't really want to work, but at the same time a steady income of some kind during the summer will be useful, especially when my parents stop paying for my gas money. Plus extra money means more Starbucks too!

I know you probably don't care that much about me. Oh well, just my issues with the world and my parents.


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8/09/2009

Oh how the interweb has made me grow.

Posted by Gemini

Oh Gosh. I'm not sure where to start with this. I suppose I'll start with the biggest impact the internet has made on me. It gave me what I want to do when I grow up. Or at least what my career choice is to be since technically I'm about three quarters of the way to being grownup.


First and foremost I want to be a programmer. That's what I've wanted more than anything ever since a couple of years ago. You see I found I had a passion for coding during the first year when I joined NEOPETS. Yes you heard me right, NEOPETS. Of all things to credit with where I am now. Anyway on the Neopets site you have areas that you can customize for yourself, but thing is, you have to understand the html language. So I dove headfirst into learning that language. And boy how much I loved coding with it. I developed like three different websites from scratch and then quite a few more once I got Dreamweaver. But back to neopets.


From there I found my next big push into coding when, through an 'advanced' program at my home school system I was allowed to join a small 'trial' club where we worked on game coding. I was head of that club, let me tell you! When people had problems with their code not working the way they wanted, the came to me! Certainly I couldn't code any of the games from scratch. No at that age the code was a little too complicated for me to understand it to that degree. But I certainly would take the sample games and change them in all kinds of ways. Let's just say my Teachers ended up getting shot at with pencils instead of Aliens getting shot at with white beams from a space ship. But of course that has nothing to do with the internet. Needless to say I am still following the idea of being a programmer and planning to go to college for it.


The internet also keeps me in contact with my friends. I'd never survive summers without it. It's helped my artwork and my writing improve, critiques being everywhere on the Internet. Or at least everywhere I go. The Internet has been good to me. But it hasn't been it's best. I certainly could do with a bit more 'popularity' from it.



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8/09/2009

Losing Computer Files

Posted by Gemini

I'm sure one or so of you who are reading this has either deleted a file, copied over it, or simply forgot to save, and in doing so, completely lost a file. And usually if the file was important enough, you can get one of those recovery software's and install it for a little while to get at least part of what you'd done back.

Too bad Photoshop doesn't keep any back records. Nope. None what so ever. Certainly it has the pictures to do so with, since it does keep an in-program history of what you've drawn. But does it take advantage of that? Nope. It doesn't do any kind of temp or permanent save until you press that Save button. Which I painfully figured out last night. Sometimes I'll start documents and then never save a .psd file of them, because I feel that I won't want the actual photoshop file, just the finished project. Now I know that's a bad idea on projects that take me more than an hour or so.

The only thing I've found within Photoshop that might save me next time is a .txt edit file. It may or may not save enough information to retrieve a picture I never saved. I won't really know until I need it and attempt to use it. For now I've turned the option on and hope it does what I need it to.

Anyway, the picture that I lost, ended up not being too hard to recreate, but I hate having to make the person it was for wait an extra day, because at the time that I lost it, I only had about an hour left till I went to bed. Needless to say I went to bed a little earlier to save on sleep because I felt to defeated that I wouldn't be able to finish the drawing until the following day.

Well I don't want to bore you too long. These are just my issues with the world and it's strange computer software ideas.


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8/08/2009

My Art styles

Posted by Gemini

I used to have the problem that my art style seemed to be a combination of two. Obviously my overall style is anime/manga or whatever you wish to call the Japanese cartoon drawing styles. However my main style always seemed to be a combination of the more realistic, and of the chibified, or highly dis-proportioned style of the Japanese. This caused the problem of my art never really looking too proper. It was either not very proportionate and silly looking, or it was slightly too realistic.

Now my style seems to be splitting into two. My chibi style is certainly becoming more pronounced. And I know I'm paying more attention to how other artists do their chibis. My realistic art is also become more so, although I still have some problems with proportion, especially when it comes to the heads proportion to the body.

I still have a ways to go until the two styles completely seperate, but I feel like I'm finally developing them into proper good-looking, attention grabbing styles.

No wait, I take back the attention part. As I've said before, I never grab attention. My art is missing some kind of Finnesse.


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8/08/2009

Relaxing in the Clouds, Enjoying myself for Once

Posted by Gemini


The image I promised from my last post. I do hope you enjoy it and find it cute and comparative to the image I was trying to portray earlier.

Don't forget that you may click on the picture to get a slightly better quality and larger image.


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8/08/2009

Programming, my passion

Posted by Gemini

I swear that if I could get myself a good project, that was totally programming oriented, no art, not much design needed, I would find myself in a little happy corner. When I get into programming, I am sometimes lost to the world. The only other time this happens is when I read a story.

I can't write or draw without also acknowledging everything that happens around me. I get distracted easily when I am doing one of these tasks.

But when I program, ahhh, I'm in my own little peaceful cloud. The image in my head for this is so clear I am almost tempted to sketch it out and post it up later just to show you.

Currently I'm trying to give myself a little programming to do by starting forum. Trouble is, the forum requires lots of design and image elements as well. These needed elements distract me from the coding, interrupt the coding, and cause me to nearly lose interest at times.

Like now. I have tons I could do on said forum to bring it up to par to get it to the point where it might be opened to the public. But instead I am typing up this post, telling you about the cloud I really want to climb on. I think I will go sketch that image and post it up here. Look out for it!

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8/08/2009

I must be missing something in my art

Posted by Gemini

I feel like... I look at my art, and then I look at someone else's art and I'm like... "Overall my art is just as good as theirs."

But of course that other person seems to have the 'fans' or the 'watchers' The people that would love to have some of that person's art. They have a bit of a sphere of influence, whilst I... have nothing. and it seems like I've always had that. Doesn't matter where I go, or how small the community, I always get passed up, and I always wonder why.

What could my art be missing?
Some finesse that I just can't seem to pick up on?
Something that makes an art piece look finished?

I'd love to be let on, on the secret. That would be nice.

SOMEBODY should be able to tell me what I'm doing wrong.

But whatever. Just my issues with the world and it's art critics.

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