Good News, Bad News.

Or, a long needed update.

First off, the Fifteen Painted Cards project is being put off to the side for a while, to stew and fester along with all of the other things there. So that’s bad news, kind of.
The good news is, the other story about the woman who gets framed for stealing the supernatual bell is still on.I’ve had the design for her worked out since very early on in the year, but I had some difficulty thinking up a good name for her. Or rather, a name for her after she loses her real one. I settled on Nome (pronounced like ‘Know me’), which is an anagram for ‘Nemo’, which translates to ‘Nobody’.
Nemo might’ve been a neat name, except for this.
1) Nemo’s a more masculine name.
2) She’ll be associated with Nemo, the name cute little Disney/Pixar clownfish.
3) She’ll be associated with Nemo, the damn awesome sea captain.
4) She’ll be associated with Nemo, the Nightwish song.
5) She looks more like a Nome, anyway.
I’m horribly indecisive, so the odds are that I’m probably going to end up dumping the name Nome and switch to something else.
But I like the character and I like the idea behind her. So much that I’m making a puppet of her in my Stop Motion class. Nome’s world and the things that happen to her just seem to be right for Stop Motion. So if the puppet comes out well, then I’ll be shooting bits about her with it.

On the topic of stop motion classes, I’m back in school now. It’s wonderful to be back in the city again. It really does feel like coming back home, and I love everything about school and NYC. It’s a privilege and an honor to be able to go to school at SVA and work with the people I get to work with. Not just the teachers, but the other students, too. There are a lot of moments where I doubt myself artistically, and I’m sure most artists do, but I can grow here and improve in ways that I’d never be able to alone. I’m starting to feel this year that I am turning into an adult and that I do have to take full responsibility for myself. I’ve been trying very hard to keep my punctuality issues under control. So far I’m doing well, but I’ve only been in school for almost 3 weeks now, so we’ll see how that goes once winter rolls around.
But I do love my classes, and I adore my teachers. Specifically in my Stop-Motion and Character Design classes. I have Carl Paolino for Character Design (who is awesome), and Voltaire for Stop Motion (who is also awesome). It’s really great to be taught by two people who are so in love with Stop Motion and really know what they’re doing with it.

The whole Mac situation, by the by, passed over kind of strangely. We finally took little Don Quixote to the Apple Store to get him checked out. After being told it would be around $1200 before taxes (!) to fix him, dad just got me a whole new MacBook and told them not to fix Don Quixote. This is where Cervantes comes in, a pretty, sleek little late 2008 model of MacBook Pro. A little while after getting Cervantes, I got a call from the Apple Store saying that Don Quixote had accidentally been sent out for repairs anyway, even thought we told them we didn’t want him repaired. So because they messed up, they were offering to cover the repair bill.
Now I have two Macs. Cervantes came to school with me and Don Quixote is at home with dad, just in case I do something stupid with Cervantes like fall on him down a few stairs. >>

All in all, a kind of weirdly happy ending, though there was still an unnecessary spending of about $1.5k for a new damn computer. =_= On the bright side, all my old files on Don Quixote were safe! I’m glad, because there was some digital art on him that I really liked. And all my old website files. Which is great, because I got it all back just in time to change my mind and want to make a new layout again! Which is exciting for everyone.

I’m also changing the name from Starcatcher Productions to Not Too Old For Dolls. Because, why not? I’ve been carrying around my wire/partially foam armature of Nome everywhere since yesterday, and I’ve been playing with her and posing her like it’s been the greatest thing ever. It’s really silly, because the puppets I’ve been making are really underdeveloped and not even close to being done, but I love them, and I love how much expression I can get out of just a wire armature.

Maybe I’m kind of gushing about how happy I am to be here, but it’s true.
And I really am going to try getting everything in order. I’d be more encouraged to update everything uniformly, but Comcast webspace sucks so badly and makes uploading and overwriting files a real pain in the ass.

Updates (7/12/2009)

Several months ago, there was an accident involving a set of stairs in the subway and my MacBook. I took a fall but had a soft landing…on top of my bag with the computer in it. The initial damage wasn’t very bad. Just a crack at the corner of the screen and the casing got a little bent. The actual performance of the computer wasn’t affected at all.
Then, a few months later (in May), it went into sleep mode and never woke up. It still starts up and makes normal sounds (startup sound, volume buttons, ect.), but it refuses to show anything on the monitor, even the external monitor. And it doesn’t go into sleep if I shut the lid.
That’s about the point where I’ll break down and admit that it’s time for some repairs.
So, I’ve been back on my old (and still aging!) PC, which doesn’t have any of my recent artwork, site files, or editing softwares that my Mac does. And it’s much pickier about staying connected to the Internet than my Mac. I’m thinking about investing into a new PC. Maybe I’ll just get a notebook or something and move over all of the important things from my current PC…
Anyway, before my Mac went down for the count, I had already gotten the front page fixed up with a new layout. I’ve been able to use that to help piece the rest of the site together with the new layout. Everything should be cleaned up by sometime soon, but as far as actually updating content goes, it depends on what I can get a hold of and how quickly. I’ll see how that goes.

(I’m still not entirely sure who it is that I’m addressing with this thing, since I’m almost 100% certain that no one except my family bothers to look at this stuff. But I’m sure it’ll come in handy some day. And it’s one more thing to do and then be embarrassed by it about a month down the line.)

Outside of the site, I’m working on cleaning out my room (which has been a project at least 14 years in the making…) and putting together a series of short films to Neil Gaiman’s short story ’15 Painted Cards From A Vampire Tarot’. Fans of Vampire: The Masquerade will probably know this one. The story was written for and published in one of the art books, I think.
There’s also another story I’ve been working on about a woman who gets framed for stealing a supernatural bell, and has her name and face taken away from her. If she can find who did it, then she gets her life back. If she can’t, or if she gives up and confesses anyway, then she’ll have to spend eternity acting as a servant for the demon she supposedly stole from. In the mean time, she’s not allowed to sleep. At all. Not even if she attempts to knock herself unconscious.
I’m still not entirely sure how this one’s going to finish up, but I like the idea, I like the characters, and it’s a rough start. It’ll be like a supernatural Sherlock Holmes!

It’s also been a while since I’ve done an artist plug, so if you can, check out Ben Templesmith at http://www.templesmith.com/faze3/ and Dave McKean at http://davemckean.com/ . Comic book fans will recognize some of their work.

Also check out Ruth Marshall (last year’s Drawing teacher) at http://www.ruthmarshall.com/ . She does some really awesome work with resins and sculpture. If you’ve ever been to the Bronx Zoo, you might’ve seen one of her models as a prop in the animal habitats.

Just Don’t Eat It All At Once.

Post-Valentine’s Day sales are awesome.

I stopped into Duane Reade earlier on today to pick up some toilet paper for my dorm. When I went downstairs to where it was, the first thing I saw was this huge display stand stocked full of Valentine’s Day candy that was 60% off. I didn’t know they made these, but there were these gigantic one-pound Sugar Daddy pops. They were just about a dollar and a half. The things look like you could use them to row a boat. 

I got 3. I could have probably spent that money on pasta, which is better as a staple food and not as horrible for you, but oh well. They’ll last me a long while, anyway. Not that a person -needs- 3 pounds of solid caramel, mind.

Midterms are creeping around the corner. (Read: They start tomorrow!) But that also means Spring Break is on the way, which is always good for everyone. It’s surprising how fast the year is going by. It’s March already. It could be that I’m getting older, but I don’t remember time passing by so quickly before.

I brought up the topic of Midterms to sort of hint at why the updates are about 2 days late, but that preparing for them is the reason why is only partially true. I’ve also been attempting to find some form of work so that I can waste my -own- money on Sasquatch-sized Sugar Daddy pops, and not my dad’s.

And, I did a piece of artwork that began on a whim, and ended up as a Threadless submission.
For those not in the know, Threadless is a website where anyone can upload their own original artwork for a chance at having it printed into a t-shirt. If it gets printed, you get money. Which is always nice.  

It still hasn’t passed screening first (I have to wait 4-8 days), but there it is. You can always see it on the website, anyway, since it’s updated.

Speaking of updates, the Featured Artists log will now be bi-weekly, since not enough traffic runs through here anyway to make a weekly one worthwhile. Really, this blog is only here because I like to talk to myself and pretend that people other than my family get to see it. (Which might actually be true, but I know that my family checks up on me here, anyway. To confirm I’m not just a victim of wishful thinking, if someone actually DOES drop in for a visit, don’t forget to sign the Guestbook page.)

I just realized how funny it is that I’m promoting a piece of artwork that focuses on Gluttony in the same post where I talk about giant Sugar Daddy pops. Fancy that.

Featured Artists for 2/20/09

Since this is the first post for this feature, this week’s group of featured artists is a bit of a grab bag.

First, from SVA, there’s a lovely friend of mine named Anastasiya who has a knock-out portfolio hosted on her Weebly space. She is a Freshman Illustration major with skills that spread over a variety of media and styles. She’s young, but definitely worth checking out.

Second, from Deviantart, we have two artists who work well with handcrafted models.
On the left, we have Santani’s delightfully twisted creature puppets. From Russia with fun!
On the right, we have Vince de Cannibol, who has some very interesting sculpture and puppets scattered between his dryads and vintage girl watercolors. 

For those of you who aren’t fans of DA, or want to see their work elsewhere, you can check out Santani here and Vince here.

Lastly, we have the delightfully weird brownboots from Deviantart. This is an artist to keep an eye on, if only to pick out the multiple cultural influences that this artist takes up for his illustrations.

Site Update 2/20/09

Hey, all.

Big batch of updates this Friday. (And I mean big!)

- The Art page under the Portfolio portal has 45 (!) new images added to it. Some date back to 2005, but there is a very recent image posted, too.
- Commission/Art Trade information has been added to the Info portal.
- The Blog portal links back here now, instead of a blank page.
- The Animation, Writing, and Music pages under the Portfolio portal have content! The Doodles and Sketches page, however, is still blank.
- Minor extra information added to the Contact portal. Now you can contact me via MSN and Deviantart.

*Notes: The Writing page only has 4 things posted to it as of right now. As pages are created it will gradually fill.
* The Animation portal has a few missing files. Some files may need to be re-shot due to a technical difficulty, but they will appear eventually.

If there are any problems (broken links, wrong thumbnails for certain images, ect.) please post them in a response to this blog.

Blog Goes Live 2/19/09

Hello, all!

After much time and distraction, the blog for Starcatcher Productions (or, rather, my own personal log that may or may not be used in relation to art) is finally online.

Here, you’ll find updates relating to the site, news on current projects, going-ons in the art/animation world, or anything else I feel like subjecting to you.

Also, this is where I’ll be posting a bi-weekly* Featured Artists log, where I will be featuring one or more artists online (famed or unknown) and linking to their portfolios. The Featured Artists log may also contain information about an animated film that might have gotten swept under the rug, or in any given case, was just flat out unknown. While the focus is generally on visual art an animation, other film media and writing may be featured. (Because it all relates to itself, really.)

Enjoy the site, stay tuned for updates, and please post any commentary or feedback here on the blog. Specifically, check out the Guestbook post, and feel free to say anything you want there at all. Anything. Could be positive, could be negative, could be about how icicles make overhangs look like the jaws of some massive monster. 

The site will be completely updated tomorrow (2/20), so no one might actually see this post until then.

Ciao!

-Kari

*note: ‘Bi-Weekly’ may not necessarily mean the Featured Artists log may be updated in a timely fashion.