nekokamui

 Oh man, I still crack up at this.  Even though I first heard it over a year ago.

http://babbys.ytmnd.com/

-rolls up sleeves-
Okay, so I dove in head first to both deviantart and elance. So far, I'm swimming in both, and feeling good.
Well, DA is no bog deal. I just hate suck-ups, so I was kind of hesitant about joining. I'm hope I'll be able to build up some work for it and maybe do commissions or something eventually. That would be fun.
I've made 2 bids on elance. One for an illustrator of animals playing instruments, and one for a women's retail site. Both of which i could easily do, so we'll see how it goes.

I'm trying to make a bunch of money, get some work going in and out so I'm not just sitting on my ass hoping and praying for turner to call me. My next thing is to e-mail Primal screen and a couple other studios and see what they say. I have to pay my car taxes this month (happy birthday to me...thanks stupid state of GA) and my aunt back for the car being fixed. i also have to get an emissions test and an oil change. fun fun. I get paid on Monday or Tuesday though, so i should be fine.

I was able to get the last sailor moon volume i needed \o/ now i have every season, all the episodes. i have the movies on vhs, so I'll worry about them on dvd later. Thats the last thing i plan on buying for a while. Tis month i want to just save and save so i can open my savings account, and start saving for my cintiq. I'm hoping to use all the money i make from elance to buy my cintiq that i want. If i could do a project every week or 2, for at least a hundred, I'd be set.

I'm excited about it.
I'm also excited about Whitney and Mike coming out to visit me for my birthday! YES! And my Saturday morning cartoon CD that I got for $1. That CD is so awesome. I used to listen to the cassette tape in elementary school.

Finished, finally.

Just need to send it off.
I'm happy. This is the first actual piece of art I've finished since my website.
Now, i Just need to keep going!
This is the version before color corrections or the final eyelash being added, but it's more or less done.
Done ENTIRELY in paper cut outs. the color correctios are only because the scanner made everything more pink

( Behind the cut for size )

Not much going on. Paying bills, playing Apollo Justice and Mario Galaxy (just need 4 more satars! DAMN YOU TOY TIME GALAXY AND YOUR SHITTY PURPLE COINS!)

Gonna finish my pepper project entry this weekend. Will post when it's done

( I have been stolen from Stevie )

The last few weeks I've felt pretty crappy about myself. I'm heavier than I've ever been, and I had hit a bad slump with all kinds of artwork. I'd been lazy and kept saying I'd do stuff, and then never even think about doing it. Lately, I've been feeling much better. I've been cooking, and cleaning, and taking better care of myself. I've been working on my entry for the pepper project, and started playing DDR in the morning again. I played today and burned 100k Calories :D which is gonna be my goal for every day...at least on days where I work from home so I can play during the day so I won't be bothering the people downstairs.
Last night I made my first pot roast. It came out good! I just need to add some tomato sauce next time for some extra flavor and to thicken the sauce. Last week or so I made beef stew which came out awesome. I'm proud of that one. It's easy to make, too, so thats even better. I just throw a bunch of ingedients into the crock pot and go to work, and then when I come back...dinner!
I'm back on weight watchers, so that'll help in shrinking my stomach again, and in keeping my junk intake down. I'd like to lose at least 15lbs by April. my goal is about 30-35. Thats to get back to the weight I was BEFORE going to scad and being introduced to snacks such as fried sticks of butter.
As for the Pepper project, I spent a log time thinking about what I'd want to do. As I was drifting off to sleep one night, i was hit with inspiration. I keep a notepad by my bed for just such occasions. The concept is a pepper for all seasons. So, it's pepper, dressed in 4 outfits for the four seasons. It'll be separated into 4 squares about an inch apart, and she is in the same pose in each, just with a different background and outfit. To top it off, it's all in paper cut out. I'm excited about it, since it's been a long time since I've had a creative idea floating around in my head. I'm hoping that i released the plug that had stopped all my creativity.
I'm seriously thinking of joining DA. I'm hoping it'll provide the push to draw more like AP provides for walling. I've done 3 walls in about 3-4 weeks. I used to do that before college. And these are much better than I used to do. I'm hoping if I'm forced to draw more, I'll get back to where I used to be. Back when you had to rip the pencil from my fingers. Those were good days. I wonder if it's that I've been feeling discouraged. Back in HS I was one of the best. Constantly praised for my work. When I went to college at Mercy, I still was, but i really hated my professor who told me I couldn't draw the way I wanted...I had to draw like him. I lost a lot of passion then. And I don't think I ever fully got it back. I got some of it when I took classes with Phil and Jason, but not all of it.
Well, I'm hoping after I finish the pepper project I'll be inspired to work on the alligators song. I think I started the script a while ago. Finish that and Finish the storyboards and I'll be going in the right direction. I need to animate again. I mean REALLY animate...like I did with Daisy.
That reminds me...I need to e-mail Blaine at turner, and I should e-mail Phil and say hi and see how he likes the desert.
Okay...back to cuttin gout tiny little bits of paper. Who's idea was this anyways? Oh...right. mine.
I suck.

I've been productive lately. To a degree anyways.
I've been working on Nicole Smith's website as soon as I get her replies, so that is a plus. I really just want to finish her site and add it to my portfolio, so I can go get some work on elance that doesn't involve stupid real estate agents. I've also been a good girl and have been making care of my computer. I set up my external HD so that time machine will back up everything every hour or so. One of my Goals for later this year is to get a second HD to install into my computer. I'd rather not rely on the external to do back-ups. I've also been cleaning off my HD. I burned a lot of stuff off, and have been watching a lot of the anime Ive hoardrd away. Lovely Comples was awesome...cute, sweet and funny all at once.
Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei is hysterical. Any anime with Phoenix Wright and DBZ spoofs is win. not to mention the shower scene from psycho.
Now I'm watching Nadome Cantabile. I like music related anime. Beck was awesome, la Corda d'oro was full of bishies and silliness, and Nadome reminds me of myself, except I'm an artist, and can cook and clean better than her. Next, it'll be an olide but goodie...Chou Kuse ni Narisou, followed by catching up in the persona anime. I'm lame. For some reason I just feel the need to watch anime lately. Maybe it's cause it's relaxing. I dunno.
I'm gonna go play some pyramids.

So, with Joey's Tax return monies, he;s going to put a lot of money toward his credit cards as well as but a PS3. I'm kinda excited, and I think I was more excited before I actually took a look at the games. My general rule for myself is I will not buy a game system unless it has at least 10 games I want on it, which is why I've almost never bought a system at launch. The one exception to that rule is if there is a zelda game on it, which would be why I bought the Wii at launch. I scanned through the list of games the Ps3 has and made my list.
Devil May Cry 4
Ratchet and Clank
Sonic the Hedgehog
...thats all thats out right now.

Later I know star ocean 4, and Kingdm Hearts 3 will be out, so yay on that. Also Final Fantasy which I have high hopes for, and just hope it's as good as the hype makes it sounds. Final Fantasy has always had a trend of dissapointing me cause fans hype it up to no end no matter if Square-Enix had a game called Final Fantasy: Gold or shit? where you would get slides of gold, and shit and make the correct selection using the X and O button. So long as there is some pretty haired girl-faced boy, they'll eat it up. I liked 10, although dragging my ass through the calm lands without a chocobo made me want to kill myself, and i somehow enjoyed X-2. Maybe it was the crack I smoked before i played, or the fact that they had cool clothes. I attempted to play both VII and VIII and was bored shitless.
ANyways, I'm more hopeful for Star Ocean 4 and Kingdom Hearts 3. Star Ocean 4 has lost it's anime style, and style-wise, has turned into Final Fantasy in space. Even so, I'll still play it because of how much I loved 3. STyle is just always a big thing for me in a game, since I'm just a visual person. Star Ocean didn't have the best style, but at least it was different from the other games like it which had all gone real. If they did another radiata stories and made it look like final fantasy, I'd cry.

Anyways, I'm very excited for Devil May Cry 4. Cheesy dialog and all. Reviews panned the bad dialog, but all i could think was..."have you NEVER played a devil may cry before? They're ALL like that! It's part of what makes it AWESOME!" the formula is...bad ass guy + awesome fighting style + horribly cheesy dialog = win.

I've heard terrible things about Sonic, but that has stopped me from playing one yet. Even sonic and the secret rings which makes me physically angry. I can't play when Joe is around, because I become irritable and nasty. I'm waiting till he goes away to visit his mom before I play some more.

I know the PS3 is geared towards adults, but so far, I think most of their library is a lot of misses for a lot of people. I'm not saying none of their games are great...but for $400-$500 for a system sporting $60 games, they'd better have more than assassin's creed, Half life (which you can play n a PC), Devil May Cry (which you can play on an xbox or PC), UT (which you can play on an xbox or PC), and the promise of some great RPG's...eventually.

The system is for Joey anyways, since he plays fighting games and stuff like that, but I was hoping by now there would be more games for me to play, considering I have something like 16 games for my wii, with Super Smash brothers Brawl on reserve. They did come out at the same time after all.

I do, however want a PSP nw that there is the promise of star ocean: Second story.

Oh, I keep meaning to post stuff of Nixi.
This is her.
She's the shining star of brilliance:

Okay, so I made my last purchase before I clear out a lot of my debt. A little bit is fine, but due to Joe and I being jobless for a good 4 months after we first moved, I acquired a bit of debt on top of my student loans. I'd like to close out 2-3 of my credit cards, and then start saving up for a cintiq.
My last purchase was kind of funny actually. One of those..."I can't believe I found this..." moments. the moment happened back in November, but I still feel that way.
Ever since I discovered the existance of anime cels, I have wanted a certain few. Originally, I wanted a Sailor Moon cel, which quickly turned into a cel from either an attack or transformation. Somehow, I managed to obtain this. The other cel i wanted was something from Princess Mononoke (or any of the ghibli films really). haven't found one yet thats under a couple thousand dollars, so that one will wait. The other big one was a cel from the X movie. While the movie wasn't very good, the X manga, and X anime (which has no cels) were awesome. the X manga is still, to this day, a favorite of mine. There were 2 possible cels I wanted from X, both of which I thought I would never find. The first, was a cel of the beginning of the movie, where kamui is standing with the cherry blossoms falling, before everything catches on fire, and the second was a cel of oth him AND nataku from the scene of them on the roof. Well, I managed to find that first one.


Oh yeas. It's gorgeous. It's not cheap, but the X cels I kinda wrote off in the back of my head as "never gonna find in a million years".
thats pretty much the point of this update. This marks the time where I will be spending pretty much every penny I have in getting myself out of debt as well as paying what other bills I have.
Anyways, I'm gonna go watch some Noein with pat-pat and joey-face.

it's funny.
or maybe it's sad, I'm not sure.

I've fallen out of touch with almost everyone from New York. When I'm back to my old home, I only see a handful of people. I see Cat and Jessie, and if I'm lucky, I see Brie. But everyone else...we just don't talk anymore. I guess thats life and growing apart and all, bu it sucks. No, I don't count spot, since in reality, I would say she doesn't REALLY live in New York anymore. When you spend 2/3 of the year in a state, thats where you live.

I keep in touch with my friends scattered around the country...In Savannah, LA, Boson, Texas, and the ones that moved to Atlanta. I've kept in touch with the people I knew for a year. Yet, when it comes to keeping touch with some of the people I knew for years...some of them even 8 years, I fail miserably. Maybe we just have nothing in common anymore. I'm a silly animator lost in my head and DVD's of colorful characters bounding around endlessly in their blissful, wacky little words, and most of my friends are down to earth brainiacs teaching the adults of tomorrow and curing diseases. I've never been known for my brilliance in math or science or even literature or history. And if you asked me my view on politics, I could reply with a simple answer not weighed down with heavy vocabulary or political terms. But thats who I am, and I just watch all my friends make leaps and bounds, while I scribble on my paper and smile to myself as the whole thing comes alive in my head.

Hell, I don't even fit in with the art community. Most artists are pretentious fucks who sit around and drink tea and challenge one another on who knows more about which obscure subject. I'd rather sit around and talk about which cartoon is better, fosters or chowder which, by the way is a trick question because they are both equally great. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a stimulating round of which politician is more corrupt and why, but I'm a much simpler person than that. Why? I just am. Just like how I will pick the new Disney movie over the groundbreaking war story with knights, faeries, and spaceships, and I'll pick the most recent phoenix wright game over the new call of duty game.

I'm not a deep thinker, I'm not a serious person, and to be honest, I'm oblivious to the world around me half the time because I'm lost in my own. A quaint little world of talking animals, princesses, and fart clouds named kimchi.

But, I'm okay with that because it makes me happy. And the more I sat in Montgomery working away, the more people I met that were the same way. And the ones that weren't...well...they didn't last long. And the best part is when you would talk to one of these other people surrounded by their own world, and your world and their world would meet, and their characters were added to your world, and yours were added to theirs. They can have their science and rocks, and screaming children, so long as I can keep meeting people like me and adding to my little sanctuary.

So, I've grown apart from so many of my friends, because my right brain has just engulfed me, and their left brains have engulfed them. i just...don't get their world I guess. Just like how I can only see the dancing girl spinning clockwise no matter how hard I try and make her spin counter. Thats just me. And it wasn't until I went to college that I actually became comfortable with that and let it consume me as opposed to fighting it off all 4 years of high school because the norm expects you to be good at math and science and literature, and not care about art, because art is silly and gets you nowhere.

Being able to finally accept myself feels good.
But I wonder if that is worth the price of friendship.