moonwildflower

Other than the Special problems class I'm doing, I've got my eye on a few art contests that are coming up, including the Halo Evolutions contest. I'm thinking about illustrating the story with the spartan III's and the Elites. Particularly the ending scene where one of the Elites has his energy sword in the Spartan's face plate and the Spartan has his finger on a detonator. Seems very epic.
As for prop building, I've been helping my friend in the construction of her own Silent Hill outfit. She's picked the Closer. And it's been going very well. We should be done by Monday at the least. I'll post WIP pics after she debuts it at Anime Expo. She's so luckly. lol
And I might be starting another secret cosplay with a friend from the 405th. We each have our own special skills that we are offering to complete this porject. A small hint here: No one else has done this before. We should be the first.

But it's for a friend this time.
And it's Star Wars.

Even though I have loved Chrono Trigger for years, this is the first piece of fan art I have ever created from the series. Ever.
And I really don't know why.
It was still a good test of photoshop on my new laptop before I start any school assingments. My wacom tablet doesn't want to work the same way as before and I'm having to find all my favorite brushes again.
Took about 3 hours of coloring and cleaning up. I really like how I managed to give it a watercolor look, akin to how the original art work looked in the guide book. lol I'm not sure how I did it though. It was one of those time where it just happened.

And I'm okay with it.
Really.
Okay. I was a bit disapointed and mad when I first heard the news. What did these other girls have that I didn't? Were they chosen just because they lived in the area and didn't need plane tickets? Was it the boob size???
After half an hour of sulking, I've realized that I'm okay. The viewers made their opinions known and I just didn't fit the bill. This won't stop me from getting to E3. Hopefully, by next year, I'll be working at a game company and I'll be sent. As a legitimate game designer. And when I walk past the G4 booth, I will smirk and say that I tried out for that position, but didn't make it.
At least I'll have all next week to work on my school work and freelance concept art now.
Good luck to the final three!

After many years of providing me with the computing power I've needed, my old laptop can be put to rest. It had gotten to the point where I couldn't even run a small photoshop file on it at any resolution higher than 300. And the fan was on all the time. This new laptop is so quiet, it scares me.
Still feeling scared about the G4 contest. I wish that they would have announced it monday, as planned. Friends talked me into getting my hair done, just in case.
Been working on personal art inbetween class stuff and cosplay. I started on a piece from Chrono Trigger....

Just got back from A-kon 21 in Dallas. I really didn't think that I'd get to go to that con this year. Just a week before the con, my Dad told me to try and get a room. He'd pay for it. Sweet! Managed to snag a room for the two nights and shared it with my brother and Kuno. It was kinda lonely with just the three of us. I'm so used of at least seven people being in a room.
For cosplays, I took my armor, Skeik and my new Lurker. It was more of a test run for the Lurker than anything else. I still need to do some work on the transition of the hand pieces and the head piece onto the bodysuit to make it look better. Overall though, people were creeped out and that's all I wanted.
Got to meet alot of 405thers I didn't know, among a host of old con friends. Somehow, we got to go to the cosplay contest too. Not to enter, unfortunitly. Just to watch. The winner was an older woman who had created one of the wise mage creatures from The Dark Crystal. It was amazing. She deserved to win. I'll post pics when I can find them.
And.... I'm starting more work on my other cosplays now. Hope to have a bunch done by Afest... Oh! Remember the Ikkicion convention where my cosplay group won Best in Show and we didn't really get anything? Seems we might get free badges! Very exciting news.
On to art news... I'm starting work on my Special Problems class. All that will be in another blog on my site. And I'm doing personal stuff along with an upcoming Halo contest. Lots to do.

...did I think that I would make it to the semi-finals of the G4 E3 Booth Babe contest. Me vs 15 other gamer girls for the chance to go to E3 as a booth babe..... Wow. My head is still spinning. When the commercial for the contest comes on G4, I feel odd.
When Kat and Nicole helped me film the entry last week, it was a quick job done with little thought as to what I was going to say. After reading some of the viewer's comments, I'm sure that I could have spoken more about other games. But Halo is one of my favorites, and that is what came to mind.  Some have even said that I didn't build my helmet ( which I wore in the video ). A lot of the comments are really nice and supportive, with a few that are just too mean to repeat.
I'll know next friday, the 6th, who has made it to the top three.
Fingers crossed everyone. 
Here's the link to the site if anyone wants to vote for me. You have to have a membership to vote, but it only takes a few seconds to get one. 
http://g4tv.com/e3boothbabe 

I love my friends.
I love them enough to dress up all in black and go dance the chorus to a K-pop song out in public with them. Several times.

Two full days of dancing in various locations. I was really surprised when Wal-Mart let us film. Through out the day, we had people come up and tell us about how entertaining we were. Uh, thanks? Guess I didn't suck as bad as I thought.

Next came to the editing, which fell to me. (damn you aid class for coming in handy, you win this round) Kat and Nicole were a big help here, making sure the sound lined up and giving me a lot of good suggestions. I can even see Kat getting into editing herself.
I had thought to use Premiere Pro, or even After Effects for the editing, but we ran into a snag with that. Seems those programs don't like to use MOD files, which is what came off the camcorder. I was looking for a program to convert them to a usable format, when I found a program that would change my life! Well, not that. But it was amazing still. I've always loved Corel programs, but they've really impressed me with Corel VideoStudio.
I downloaded the 30 day trail and went to work. The MOD files loaded in perfectly, and I even got the mp3s to work. I did not have to convert the files like I usually had to with the Adobe programs.
I know that I might have been using them wrong or missing something, oh well.
Anyway, the UI was simple and easy. Cropping was nice. Lots of layers for various sounds and music. I love this program. So much so that I might want to buy it later.
Back to the video. We rendered it in HD for youtube and submitted it last night. Now we just have to wait for a week to see the results. The winners get 5 autographed CDs and the group's performance outfits. (wonder if they wash them first?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd3Qx76cS_8

Ran by the school yesterday to drop off my last final project and pick up my ceramic stuff. It finally got fired. At least most of it. My geometric piece still hasn't had it's final firing, but I can pick that up sometime during the summer.

(Re-posting description from DA, feeling lazy now)

Final project for Ceramics class.
We were tasked to use two of the three techniques that we had learned over the semester. I didn't enjoy working with slabs, so I chose throwing and pinching. The main idea behind this was something Celtic, and maybe the fact that my uncles are hunters and I've been surrounded by deer skulls most of my life. Here, the skull acts as a presentation tool, handing the bowl out to the guest.

Unfortunately, one of the teeth fell off during the bisque firing and I have no idea where it is. But it doesn't bother me. The entire process of this project didn't turn out as expected. Glazing is always an experience. Using the glazes provided by the school, there was no way to know what I would be getting in terms of color variation. The main glaze of the skull was supposed to be more of a red, with black markings. The bowl turned out as expected though. Funny huh?

When tasked with redoing a movie poster for my final, I found myself with too many options. I knew that I wanted to do something Sci-fi or Fantasy. Labrynth or Star Wars... Somewhere along those lines. I ended up seeing a trailer for the new Tron and knew then what to do.  Big thanks for my brother for the use of his arm and his frisbee as reference.