Pres’s “College II”

March 1st, 2009 § 1

My good friend Chad has just released his new mashup album, titled “College II”. As the name suggests, this is the second installment of what he has said will be a trilogy. Before I continue, I should note that this involves free music! Of course, you can donate to him from the link at the bottom of the page here.

Since the first installment of the College series, which can be found here (and also free!), Chad has upped his game by incorporating turntable work as a regular part of his set. It has added a lot, and its quite noticeable on the new tracks. I gave it a first listen-through coming back from my aunt’s house yesterday and I was rather impressed. I won’t tell you what to think, but I will encourage you to at least download it and check it out if you’ve got the time and bandwidth to spare.

Here’s some direct downloads for ya’ll. These are zip files, by the way.

College II – download

College – download

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Seitan… You’re My New Fav

February 24th, 2009 § 3

Behold…

So delicious

So delicious

In what is probably one of the more delicious meals I’ve ever made for myself, the above pictured food entered my stomach tonight for dinner. I have all this seitan that I made the other day, and there’s so many possibilities for cooking with it that I decided to try two in one meal. I fried some and mixed it in with fried brown rice and sauteed peppers and onions. In addition, I substitued the seitan for tofu in a baked tofu recipe that Husam had made before. Salad on the side a glass of vanilla soy milk basically made this meal amazing. The baked seitan came out better in my opinion, or at least I enjoyed it more. Either way, I’ll be making more meals with this amazing substance, for sure.

It’s mi mom’s birthday today! (Well, yesterday, as it’s now after midnight) Happy birthday mum!

I came across this image on Cute Overload. This image is for Kyrsten, because she’s the only one obsessed enough with looking at pictures of puppies to care.

But also because we’re going to have the most rad loft apartment one day with a hamburger bed (ironic, I know), floor to ceiling glass windows and Flemish giants and a puppy or two. Be jealous.

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A Weekend of Waffles and Win

February 23rd, 2009 § 3

Oh dear, it has been far too long since I last posted something. But do excuse me, it was a hectic weekend. And by hectic, I mean eptic. And by eptic, I mean EPIC.

Two major things happened this weekend. Well, three, but two sort of go together.

One. WAFFLE PARTY. Hussam’s brother and sister came up to visit as well as two other friends, and with them they brought 120 waffles. In addition to that, a box of 40 more was purchased, bringing our waffle count to 160. Anyways, words can’t really do it justice, so here’s some viz.

Puttin stuff on them.
So many waffles...

Two. I have decided as of Friday to transition myself into a vegan diet. It’s a decision I thought a lot about over the past couple weeks, and I’m happy with the conclusion I came to within myself. And yes, there were eggs in the waffles pictured above. The waffle party thus commemorates my departure from dairy products.

The more important part of this second point is… SEITAN!

Seitan! Seitan, also known as ‘wheat meat’ is essentially gluten (wheat flour and water) that you boil in a stock for a couple hours. It solidifies and then becomes chewier as it cools, so that you end up with a substance that has a texture and consistency very close to chicken. After that you’re pretty much free to cook with it as you please. Tomorrow night I’m planning on breading it and baking it. Color me excited :D

Spring break is just around the corner (headed down to Burlington for a couple days on Wednesday, Connecticut on Friday) and that means a whole  bunch of work to squeeze in before that. Today I did about 20 different character animations for The Eve. I guess I can consider that a productive day. I also put together a portfolio site this weekend, which I’ll unveil the link to on here as soon as its complete. Originally I was just going to use this site as my portfolio site in addition to a blog, but I read some things that suggested otherwise. Besides, I decided I wanted a URL that had my name in it, so it’s a better decision in the long run. Check back for more on that.

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Art Updates and Orange Juice

February 19th, 2009 § 0

Thought I’d throw up some renders of the most recent character I’ve been working on. The workflow for this character bust was a low-poly mesh in Maya, and then sculpting in ZBrush, which is where I’m at now. It’s still a work-in-progress, don’t get me wrong. There’s no paint on the sculpt at all yet, just a default skin shader. But it’s definitely getting there.

So TODAY (well…yesterday…it’s 1 am right now) was my first day offiicially off the cleanse, which meant basically orange juice and water all day. Admittedly I had a piece of a bagel, and also a bit of hummus, a tiny bit of tabouli, and some soup, but all is well =]

Anyways, the point is, the 100% Orange Juice that the company Oasis makes is THE best orange juice ever made on this earth. I was saying earlier tonight how much of a Tropicana boy I’ve always been. Brand loyalty for as long as I can remember. But damn, this OJ just ousted Tropicana in one sip. I’ve never seen it in the States, which is unfortunate.

This weekend means full meals again which means I am making seitan for the first time (fake meat, for those unfamiliar). Pretty damn excited. Definitely gonna make some delicious General Tsao as soon as possible.

I’m going to put up more artwork tomorrow or sometime this weekend, updated stuff from The Eve. Stuff is coming along real nicely, been working on the textures for the guy, and they look awesomeeeeee.

Time to sleep!

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Make-Up Work

February 17th, 2009 § 0

I apologize for the lateness of these assignments. Plx give me full credit still.

Raves ‘R’ Us

February 7, 2009

One of the more amazing nights of the past few months =]

I replaced some of the audio because basically all my footage was entirely blown out. Crappy mic on my digital camera.

Song in the vid is “Come Running” by Darren Styles.

Quebec City 5×5

The preview frame that Vimeo gave me for this makes me laugh. And Brooke too, apparently.

1. Carolyn ruins a shot
2. Fourth successful fake picture of the night
3. Firebombs explode in the atmosphere
4. Winter Carnival
5. Church Bells

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Two More Days, and How to Be Trendy

February 16th, 2009 § 9

When I wake up I will be on Day 9! I know I’ve already said this in a previous post but MAN is it weird to think that I have not put food into my body in 8 days. But I’m feeling great! And I think when I start to wane myself back onto food later this week I’ll feel even better.

Also, I just decided right now, just now, that I’m going to start sharing new artists I find in posts. So I guess today I will have to direct all fans of indie folk music to check out Alexi Murdoch, who I was lucky enough to stumble across on last.fm radio a few days back. Faintly reminiscent of Damien Jurado in some of his songs, but his accent sets him apart. I’ll never tire of new folk artists, so I’m totally pumped on it.

Now onto the whole ‘how to be trendy’ part. For any of you who comment here often (all 4 or 5 of you), you should take a minute and set up a Gravatar. If you look at the comments section of any posts, you’ll see that any of my comments have a picture, whereas all others have randomly generated vector art. My image comes from my gravatar, which is essentially an icon that is associated with your email address, and if you comment or post on any blog that supports Gravatars (and most do in this Web 2.0 world), then your image is used in place of whatever preset icon normallly would be. It’s pretty cool. Besides, I want to see some more cool icons in my comments section, and less randomly generated icons.

Got a whole bunch of work done today on some character animations for The Eve. Will definitely post when I get the time, perhaps along with those screenshots from the sculpt I’m working on as well like I said I would. It’s going to be a hell-ish week.

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Reevaluating

February 14th, 2009 § 3

Among other things, the past 6 days (4 more to go!) have led to several internal conversations regarding my eating habits after I finish the cleanse and the morality they entail. For those of you who don’t know, I made the decision to become a lacto-ovo-vegetarian back in September. The fact that I remain a vegetarian suggests that I am happy with the way that my decision has impacted my life. Initially a large part of my reasoning was health-related. More and more lately though, my concern with the moral issues of my diet has been elevating. Though I don’t eat meat, I tend to feel hypocritical eating certain types of foods, especially lately when eating eggs, cheese and milk.

Because of the break in food shopping and eating that this cleanse has provided me, I’ve been doing a lot more reading on some of these issues. Tonight, however, I think a conclusion has landed upon me. I’m going to post this with the intention of sharing a powerful film, and not attempting to force this on anybody. The video embedded below is a documentary called Earthlings. I happened upon this when VeggieTweets started following me on Twitter and then shared a few links with me when I too began to follow them.

Well, I took the time to watch the documentary, because I needed a break from working anyways (modeled an entire high-poly character bust in two days, getting ready to sculpt it in 5). To say the least, it was the most horrifying film I’ve ever seen. It ended just a half hour ago and I was left thinking to myself how I could possibly continue with a non-vegan diet after this cleanse is over. I’ve been a vegetarian for a while now, yes, but after watching this, the prospect of even eating animal-based products does not seem appealing nor morally right. Call it an epiphany that maybe vegetarianism alone does not entirely satisfy my moral standards, especially after watching Earthlings.

Even as I write this I’m thinking of the dietary changes that I now feel that I need to make in order to make the transition from vegetarian to vegan. Becoming a vegetarian was rather simple for me. One day I was eating meat, the next day not, and it’s been that way since. Making this switch for some reason seems much more drastic, but I can’t see how I could possibly continue eating animal-based products now.

Gosh, this is an awfully personal and serious post. If anybody is still reading, good for you. It’s like this is my diary.

I think I’m going to try and ease myself into being a vegan. It is a lot to take in (pun, unintentional) at once, but in the long run this is something I want to do. I need to stop rambling and go to sleep.

Seriously, everybody watch the following video when you have the time:

Also, check out VeggieTweet’s blog, here: http://www.veganise.me/

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Half Way!

February 12th, 2009 § 1

Day Five of cleanse! Feeling great still, though I am a bit low on sleep.

This cleanse is allowing me to experience two new things in my life, things that I normally just wouldn’t have any reason to even think about. First off, the feeling of not being hungry despite the fact that I haven’t eaten food in five days is… well… very strange. It just feels like I should be hungry. My brain tells me I should be hungry. It’s made me realize that hunger is so much more of a psychological thing than a biological thing. Second of all (and this is stranger of these two epiphanies), for the first time ever, I’m experiencing the feeling of missing food. Not to be confused with just being hungry, or craving something. Eating is such a natural part of every day of our lives that you completely don’t realize that it satisfies some need in you to be chewing something or tasting something, something beyond “that food was delicioussssss!”

But! Don’t get me wrong, I’m holding strong. Five more days on the liquid-only part of the cleanse, and then five days to wane myself back onto solids and it is complete!

I think this is most personal post I’ve made on here since I’ve got the new blog up.

I’m currently on my laptop, while trying to get rid of a nasty little virus on my desktop. Not much fun. Especially when I have a LOT of work to do tonight. Have to finish a base mesh of a character bust for tomorrow morning, and then I need to sculpt AND paint that for next Thursday. Good thing I’ll be saving at least an hour and a half or so per day not eating meals ;)

The bust I’m working on is coming along great though, I’ll get some screenshots up later tonight or tomorrow morning. Three words: Steampunk … Native American.

Its a damn good thing I like lemonade so much.

It's a damn good thing I like lemonade so much.

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Black Dragon…

February 9th, 2009 § 0

To fully understand why the image below is funny, refer to this post of a few weeks ago. For those of you who read this at all often, you’ll remember a video posted that involved us going to a reggae bar. It was a great time. We had a drink (which were way too expensive), listened to some blues, and then got up and danced (the only ones dancing, of course). Well…click on the image below and read on.

Black Dragons Got Effffffed

Point being… we were dancing to a blues band in a bar full of drug lords. Moving on…

Below you will see…THE PROCESS. Also known as:

  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • After-Lunch Snack
  • Pre-Dinner Snack
  • Dinner
  • Dessert

No but seriously, the detox is going great so far. I’m feeling well and it’s really not all that bad. Plus I get to smell like lemons all the time, even if I don’t want to. But hey, lemons smell clean. Enjoy the pictures.

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Cleanse and New Art

February 7th, 2009 § 3

Beginning Sunday, I will be partaking in something that I’ve been reading about for the past 6 months or so. Since I’d heard of it about a year ago I’d really wanted to do it, but now it’s happening for sure. So yes, starting Sunday, I will be doing the master cleanse for 10 days. This is otherwise known as a detox, look up the ‘master cleanse’ if you’re as interested as I am. It’s really not about dieting for me, I’ve just really wanted to clean my body out since I stopped eating meat and being overall much healthier in my life. I’ve been thinking more and more about it though, and the concept of fasting just intrigues me a whole lot. Aside from the health benefits of it, the fact that the human body can survive adequately without food is amazing. Reading stuff in forums, I’ve seen that a lot of people have actually done this particular cleanse for over 40 days with no negative side effects… absolutely wild.

Also, just because I managed to get some stuff rendered out, here’s a walk cycle for our male lead character for The Eve. This three-quarter perspective really isn’t even going to be used in-game, we’re using basically all side renders, but this showcases the style of art we’re doing. Though it appears at first as if it’s a drawn character sprite, this is actually a low-polygon character model rendered out using 100% light (in other words, all of the properties of the shader are essentially disregarded and the texture is displayed completely lit with no shadows).

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Production will really be picking up now. Auston and Alex finished making our art asset list, and I believe we’re just shy of 500 assets. FUN! Keep reading the blog as I know you all do and I’ll continue posting bits of work as it gets completed.

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