So, my dad calls me.

The first words out of his mouth are, "I love the blue-eyed raven."

I'm like, "... Buh?"

He goes on about the blue-eyed raven, and I'm like, 'That sounds a lot like a certain story I've been writing on the side, but how in the hell did he-?'

Then he explains that he found it on "the Z thing."

Then my Dad-to-English babelfish kicks in and I realize he's talking about this blue-eyed raven on DeviantArt.

I am not one to self-promote, really, so when I say that I'm shocked that he even found this, know this to be an understatement. My dad likes to keep tabs on my DA account, so sometimes I'll let him know if I've posted something new.
According to him, though, it came as a complete surprise that I had done something like this. He hadn't even thought it was me, until he read my bitchy artist's comments.

He was extremely excited about the story, comparing it to Harry Potter in terms of the structure, telling me that he was very interested in reading it.

I am taken aback. What I think happened is that he had no idea that I've been writing stories for years. In fact, most people don't know that I write. I'm extremely self-conscious about it, and I don't let people read a whole lot of what I write just because I don't think it's all that awesome. My forte for a long time has been drawing (and even that is mediocre).

So I think the combination of my most thought-out story concept to date and a minor revolution in my drawing style really wowed my father, given how he had no concept of everything up to this point.

He gave me good advice, too. He advised me to draw before I write. If I'm struggling with a character's personality, I should draw the scene, the action sequences, the background, whatever. He says I'm an artist first.
This is probably very true. I don't enjoy writing exercises, as they strike me as just efforts to economize vocabulary. I write all of the time, and most of it is garbage. But the good stuff comes from what I can visualize.

I'm still a little in shock, how excited he was about this. I've already decided to put some more effort into my art. Guess I'll have to finish writing the damn thing, too!

I'm struggling a bit with my art at the moment. This is a big step up from not doing art at all.

Lately I've been working on my coloring style. I can't seem to be consistent.

I find myself drawn to the haphazard side of coloring, as well as very stark, cell-type shading. I get very frustrated with realistic shading, as it rarely fits what I have in my head.

I also don't think I have the patience for it.

On top of that, I really need to work on diversifying the people that I draw. I've been working long and hard on backgrounds, as I had previously cast those off as too picky to bother with. But now I need to get back into figures and, perhaps more importantly, faces.

I need to draw all kinds of people. Guys, girls, young, old, fat, skinny, muscular, or anorexic. And then I need to simplify them to a few defining lines. Because I seem to want a very simple, sketchy style. No minute details, no meticulous etching of texture (although I'm trying to incorporate more of that, as well). I want to do more with lighting, too. Maybe create a picture only using black and a highlight color.

Ah. I dunno. As I said, I've only recently re-entered the art world, and very slightly at that. One thing at at time.

Just finished the most ambitious piece of art I've EVER done. My back is killing me. And my arm. And my neck.

I'm just blegh right about now. But, that motherfucker is DONE, so I can DO STUFF this weekend!

Speaking of stuff, saw 9 on a complete lark with my friends, last night. (I'm not even bothering to italicize the title...)

Pretty freakin sweet, you guys. The animation made me a happy camper, on top of the whole post-apocalyptic landscape thing. So, yeah. I enjoyed it.
I also bought two shirts from Hot Topic, one of which is a Tripp shirt with black and white bands, you know the kind. You look like an inmate and about 20lbs heavier if you're not built like a heroin addict. I love the thing, shut up.
The second shirt was this fantastic little number that I gave to my friend, because it was clearly made for him. It's black and has rainbow letters across the front that say, "Mom, I'm Gay."
This guy is gay as hell, and his mom is oblivious. Like I said, made for him.

I have class in about forty minutes, so I'm just killing time before the WEEKEND.
Also, toying with the thought of changing my major to Psych. Seems pretty cool...

ANYWAY.


(ps- if you're curious, here's the piece I was talking about. God, I hate its face.)

So, instead of studying, I ended up drawing. This is strange, as I haven't done it seriously in months.

And, after scribbling some scary-ass stuff, I ended up drawing a male nude. I've got next to no experience with male nudes, so this is even stranger.

But the finishing touch to this cake of strange is that I drew fanart. I have never in my LIFE drawn fanart.

And its Supernatural fanart! As in, a real person fanart!

I. Eh.

I'll upload it this weekend or something, when I can use my father's scanner.


Ah. What.