That's right. I'm addressing those few who find their way here. If it's not any trouble, I'd love to learn more about those who visit once or like to check in every once in a while. I'd like to know what their interests are and what they'd like to see. What I can do to make my site better. Anything really.

On to updates: Awaiting  results on the Eowyn vs Nazgul challenge. I loved working on it! ArtOrder is looking to possibly make a book or calender from some of the entires, as well as several other exciting options. Some of the entries are jaw-dropping and make you want to go cry in the corner. lolj
Continuing work on my silence sculpt. It has required another 4lbs of clay and several more reference pictures. I swear that there are more than one version of the Silence mask. Some of the pictures show it being skinnier or the color of the skin is off.....  And we've started on our hands by using our silent-hill method. It would take too much clay for me to sculpt both a left and a right and then cast them.

Edit: Oh! And I forgot to mention. I got my first rejection letter! Tor sent it just yesterday. No biggie. Rejection is to be expected in the publishing game. I'm going to focus on agents now. Writing query letters is an art all it's own. And each agent asks for different things: plot, summery.... 

Here's my latest WIP. Done a lot of detail work. My brother got to be both Eowyn and the Nazgul for the photoshoots. Next step will be cleaning it up some more and the addition of color. I plan on keeping it fairly muted. 

And I've gone through at least 12lbs of clay on my Silence sculpt. The head is about 70% done. Just need to cap it and start in on the details. The slush latex has been ordered too. After the head has been cast, I'll reuse the clay to scupt out the hands. I can't wait to wear this at A-kon in June.

Since I just started work on my Jun helmet, I'll be documenting the process at more of a depth than I have with any of the others. Pictures with explainations will be posted here, with the final tutorial being posted in the Prop Work section. At the moment, I have modeled a low res helmet in 3ds Max. It's not the most beautiful thing of course. I don't want to spend a lot of time on something I can do later with bondo.

I exported the file as an .obj and opened it in Pepakura viewer. I unfolded the model and arranged the parts on the proper paper size, making sure that nothing overlaps. The mess in the picture is what it looks like at the beginning of the unfolding. It looked nothing like that at the end. Everything had been cut and placed in an organzied fashion.

The next step was to build it using hot glue and xacto knives.

To help the paper craft keep it's shape, I like to add a layer of resin. Can't really tell from the picture. It usually soaks into the paper and makes it a bit darker.

And now the fun part! Smooth Cast 320 mixed and poured in smal amounts to coat the interior. It usually leaks out of cracks if you aren't careful. This can be a problem if it leaks and hardens on to a detailed exterior. But this helmet lacks any super detail on the outside. Yay!
Cause it did leak. lol. I coated it enough that it doesn't  bend, but doesn't get too heavy. I made that mistake with my Tali helmet. I had to sand out part of the interior or risk falling over backwards.

And that's all I have so far. I hope to start with the bondo and sanding, weather permiting.
Oh, a bit of art news too I guess. I'm starting on yet another portrait. And I've found myself a  new art community over at cghub. I'm liking it so far, as well as all the art challenges. Got one due on the 13th. Will post some of the WIP when I feel like it.

Sorry for being gone so long. So much to report.
Cosplay: Carl and I finished our Mass Effect 2 Cosplays and attended Anime Matsuri in Houston last weekend. We walked away from the contest empty handed but got an amazing photoshoot with Mike Boike. This had to be one of the toughest builds I've ever done. A mixture of both cloth and hard props. I got help from my mom on the cloth. I think I might be able to do the next on my own  now. Tali's helmet turned out just as I hoped. The vacuumforming of the visor was the most stressful thing I've done cosplay-wise. The entire photoshoot can be found at my cosplay groups DA page: http://shinkastudioscosplay.deviantart.com/

Art: Took a break on the art while I wos working on the props. But now I'm going to focus on portraits so I can try and help out with a charity that does portraits of dead soldiers.

Still waiting on word from Spectrum and Tor. Every night before I go to bed, I imagine getting a letter and it saying something along the lines of "Congratulations, blah blah, publish/feature, blah blah". It helps me to visualize it. Makes me feel better too.
Entered another contest. This time, it's the Stan Lee Foundation super hero contest. Idea was to create a super hero that would excite the global audience. So, Fauna came to be. Got to practice my copic markers some more too.
And I've changed my mind about using foam for the pistol. I'm sculpting it out of clay instead. It's giving more control and will allow me to ultimately make more via  molds anyway. Might send one to Bioware if they turn out well enough.

Wow. I love this stuff. After many months of searching, I found the liquid that had been suggested to me by a friend. It was at Home Depot.
This is just the rigging I came up with to keep Tali's gauntlets from sticking to anything while I let them drip and dry. I'm interested in seeing how they look painted. I've also cut out some of her buttons and belt peice. If the buttons look acceptable painted, I'll go ahead and make more. I plan on using this stuff on her boots and shoulder wraps.
 I also found a good pic of the pistol I'm going to be using. That will be done from the thick EVA foam, ala Evil FX.

And we're back. This con felt different. I think it had to with the other events going. Graduation, Xmas, birthday. There was just so much to think about.
We were so stressed. The two days before con, we did not sleep. At all. And we still didn't get everything done. Time just didn't flow like how it should have. What should have taken 2 hours to cut, shape and sand took so much longer. The paint was still wet when everything was loaded into the van at midnight. The day of the cosplay contest was spent finishing up the rigging and minor painting. And it still took forever. We were even late to the prejudging. lol
Minuetes after that, we had to try and get the wings on. Sadly, we hadn't gotten the chance to try everything on before actually getting there, so we really had no idea how it would all fit. And it didn't. Carl and Ashely's wings drooped a lot. Part of the harness that held my wings ripped apart. Kat became my shadow and held it up while we were on stage.
Thankfully it was all worth it. We won 1st in the Open Walk-ons. Best in Show was an amazing Corpse Bride cosplayer. Her train was beautiful. Makes me want to do some more cloth-based stuff.
More good news to share! GameInformer's Cosblog has posted it's feature on our Silent Hill cosplays. It's cool to have more exposure. And some of the comments are so funny! Check it out! http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2010/12/29/cosblog-_2300_41_3a00_-silent-hill-monstrosities-by-shinka-studios.aspx?PageIndex=1

I'd like to say think you to everyone who visited my table during Exit Review. My ego got some much needed stroking and I have a bit more hope of having a career in Illustration and Concept Art. I even got to meet the Big Illustration teacher whom I never got to have a class with. Of everything I had on my table for people to take with them, only one of my resumes where taken and I believe that at least 10 of my business cards were picked up. I got introduced to a self-published comic art who said that he might be interested in having me do some covers for him.
I have to admit that I spent a good portion watching the doors for two groups of people who were invited. If they ever showed up, I have not clue. Guess I'll have to send them my resume after the New Year. Till then, I'm spending all of my freetime trying to finishing up a cosplay in preperation for Ikkicon. 10 days. Seems so short, but we've done more on less time. I have faith.

Study for today. Looks nice and warm. Opposite of what it's like outside. A cold front moved in this morning. I started sanding around 10am. By noon, it was too cold to hold the dremel.   But the weapon is looking good. It's been coated with resin and is nice and strong. 

And I just picked it up from the bookstore. It's pretty exciting to see something I've done in printed form. My illustration is on the page right before "Midnight in Heart of Midlothian".

Also just got back from seeing Megamind. Excellent movie. Much better than I expected. I've never been a fan of  Will Ferrel. I must admit though, his voice acting was amazing. I forgot that it was even him doing it. I'm still debating on how much of it was mo-cap vs actual animation. It was super fluid. And the cloth.... I'm still in awe. It crinkled in the arm pits. And the capes. Wow. Just wow. I would love to add the art book to my collection.

Ikkicon is a month and a half away. Been working really hard on the group's new cosplay. The foam technique is working out really well. I'm even using it for my weapon. Carl is going with wood for his. Will make sense when the whole thing is revealed.