sketchs - january 0410

This should have been the New Years baby for last year. Sure ant pretty, that's for sure. Must be a portrait of Dorian Grey when he was young.

Ah, 2010. Reminds me of the sequal to 2001, A Space Odyssey, remember that one? I sure don't. I never even watched the whole thing. But some how I'm curious as to the follow up story to the original. I only saw bits and pieces, so I never saw the end. So, I must see it sometime soon.

sketches - December 2309

It's been too long since my last Christmas card, so I had to get some inspiration. My original idea was not panning out due to complexity - I wanted to do a kid cooking Christmas dinner and making a huge mess of the stove top, while trying to read a cook book on a music stand. I can see it in my head and needed to do some research for reference images, but ran out of time, so I'm resorting back to what I feel comfortable doing on such short notice - goofy kids, which I have a lot of fun drawing. We should come up with a children's book - any ideas, people!!! Hint, hint. Maybe I'll try something grander for a Christmas card next year.

This has been one hell of a year, as most of you may know. The tally comes to four people's parents that have past away, one thinking she had cancer, one moving away, two nearly died, lost one as a friend, close co-workers quitting to go to another company, shitty situation at work, depression. On the other hand, gained some new friends, got closer to others, a lot of self reflection and very thankful for all the good friends that I have and that everyone is in good health.

So quite a year, but nothing compared to what Leaded's gone through, going through. My thoughts are with you mank! I hope next year will be better for everyone, I really do. I'm keeping my fingers, toes and what ever else I can cross, crossed, as well as many other superstitious things, less the sacrificing of a living animal...or person?...too much, never mind. We are, after all, living in the twenty-first century where that does not occur, right? Somehow, I doubt that, we just call it war:p

sketches - December 1809

Had the strangest dream last night.

I was in a large warehouse size toy store, and helping Batman fight the Joker and his side kick little girl. There was this large bin of brightly colored, super soaker looking airsoft guns that shot a hundred BBs at once, and I was racking them off at the Joker behind cover. The little girl was pretty mean with cans of silly string as lines of it shot my way. It was a long night of Batman and me chasing them back and forth and I can't remember the rest, because the dream took on another path.

sketches - December 0609

Mine Got! What is this?!?! Another blog entry this soon?

I guess I must try and keep this shit up to save face. I got you guys into this and I failed to keep up. But it's just been one hell of a couple of years. Can't wait for it to be over!

So the classmate friend called me up earlier this week. We had not talked in many months. Life got busy for everyone. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!! Anyway, he wanted to see if I would be interested in going painting Saturday afternoon, and I said yes, otherwise I would never go out painting by myself. And so we went across the bay, North of Alameda, next to a port for container ships. By this time it was already after one, so there isn't a lot of light left, maybe two or three hours before the light just changes too fast to paint.

I have not painted in so long, that I had no confidence in myself to paint anything decent - I'm just not a very fast painter, so by the end, the painting kinda changed with the sunlight. But I don't know, I kinda like it.

sketches - November 2709

OMG, I am SO getting Final Fantasy XIII!!! And I hope that it is going to be good. Because if it is reviewed well. Then I will have to get it. And when I do get it, I might just retreat to the "man cave", and immerse myself in another epic late night, no sleep, anti-social behavioral, nerdy glee of casting freakin bad ass spell affects, and can't get enough of, RGP!

Behold the holy cheesy story, and then the game play, heh, heh

http://ve3d.ign.com/videos/58849/Xbox-360/Final-Fantasy-XIII/Trailer/Japanese-Launch-Trailer

sketches - November 1809

So ends an era that is my work at EA.

I remember the golden days of working at EA back in 2001. It was hard times for me around that time. I had just took a risk and jumped jobs to go with a friend I met at PCPL, sold to THQ. He quit and went to Midway Games. I was all excited and wanted to do something really fun - a third person shooter remake of Area 51! I mean, hell yeah! That could have been lots of fun, except for 9/11. Shortly after that the studio got shut down, and I was out on my ass.

I was on unemployment for a little while until that same friend that I jumped jobs for got me an interview with EA. Oh yes, the "dreaded" EA where they "work your ass off and then throw you away when they're done with you" reputation. But what could I do. The bills gota be paid, so I went and interview. Next comes the "TFT" contract, where they screw you by saying that you are considered a "full time" employee, but with no benefits. Meaning that you are considered a "salaried" employee, and not an "hourly" one, so you are not bound to the "forty hour week" max rule. Instead, you work overtime and not get paid for it. Nice one. I was stuck. What can I do? Bills had to be paid. The three month contract got extended twice. When it was up, then, they gave me a full time offer. Gee, thanks. I was stuck. What can I do? Bills had to be paid - off to the dungeons I go.

The first project was "Freakstyle". This was a SSX meets Motocross type game, and it was actually pretty fun to work on. The project was a co-dev with Page 44 Studios. Well, color my ass impressed. This freakin corporation's got some nice shit. I was set up with everything I need for production. I was quickly set up with a personal TV hooked up to a PS2 test station that's connected to the workstation. Holy Crap! No more sharing of one test station to every four or five artist! I got a lot of work done! No benefits, still sucked ass.

I was put on the second project right after the first one with no breaks. I was to help out on Bond, Nightfire, building track environments. That was pretty challenging, and I had lots of fun as well. They say that the "third" one's the charm - I guess it was for me, because I was put on the next Bond game: James Bond - Everything or Nothing, "EON" for short. To my luck, I was put on as the only artist on Multi-player. The Art Directed didn't care about the look of it, so I had free reign, baby!!! I did almost everything that had to do with the environments, from concepting, to modeling, to texturing, and even lighting and props - awesome!!! That was my "Golden Era" at EA.

It all went down hill from there.

I just didn't understand how they could take apart an awesome team like EON, where everyone worked well together and can totally make another game just as fast and efficiently. After EON, I was pretty mush a firefighter. I guess they figured that If I was good enough to do everything in a fast and efficient manner, that I could do a lot for projects that are in danger of not making ship date, and so, I that's what I became year after year following crunch after crunch. But what can I do. I was stuck. Bills had to be paid. I dub that time the Dust Bunny Era......

The last era is be Dead Space. This project was indeed challenging, but the challenges didn't come without great sacrifice. What started out as an attempt to be closer to the other half on the other side of the world, didn't quite work out. The job was much more demanding than expected, and what was supposed to be a three month training tour turned out to be eight. By the end, I not only saw very little of the other half, but also blew a major fuse in the noggin as well. But not all was a lost, there I have met and made some good friends. I guess I kinda fell in love with the people on team that I trained and that was totally worth it. The studio was full of eager people who are eager to learn new things and they totally reminded me of me when I first started in the industry - I got swept up by their energies and could not leave them stranded when the tidal wave of work came. They were not ready.

Take us to January 2009, the start of a sequel. This time around it was going to be "different", so we thought. The art team was now armed with the knowledge of all the mistakes and successes that was made on the first one. We made sure we gave tests to potential vendors that we thought would be a good fit. The test was on two areas of production; the artist side as well as the technical side - both are needed for a successful outsourced pipeline. There were four vendors in all that was tested, EASH was one of them. Needless to say that I was proud of the results! EASH was top runner on both counts! So we had a good start, but to make a long story short, the process that the art team came up with to solve the outsourcing issues, were never taken seriously, and so, we are still struggling with getting things organized enough and prepared enough before given the work to our outsourcing co-developers. It has already been twelve months of this BS. I am done! So when the ex-GM and COO left and formed a new company, and a lot of people left with them, including a good co-worker friend, the "writing" was on the Wall. It was time to pump up the ball and bounce... But before I bounce away, I felt that I needed to do what ever I can to help out the team that I had trained. They were good, but still had management problems, so I asked to go for a two week training of the team, because there were a lot of newer artist that I have not met before. I needed to assess the problem and make suggestions and additional training as best as I could. It was sad to know that I may not work with any of them ever again. But hey, what can I do? My mind was fried, my spirits are low, I haven't created content in over three years, and the fun meter here has hit rock bottom - why on earth do they give management responsibilities to artist like me makes absolutely no sense. I need to make the best game art, ever, and that's just not possible for me at EA anymore. I need something more.

In my attempt to bounce a little early, I offer myself as one of the 1,500 "sacrificial lambs" for the upcoming sacrifice to the unemployment Gods. This seems to have become an annual ritual performed in order to appease the corporate bottom line, but no go.

And so, here I sit...tick, tock....

I feel sad for leaving EA, I had some great times and met some good people.

sketches - October 0109

Wow, it has been a while since my last entry. I've just been too burned out and had no motivation or inspiration or energy to update. This year has been a bitch. I'm hoping that next year will be better for everyone.

Happy holloween!

sketches - July 0609

July 4Th was one of those days...

One of those totally awesome days! Yeah! Seemed like all the planets aligned, well, almost anyway. The day started out with waking up around 9:30am. The sun was bright and the sky was totally clear. The Warden was in town so we decided to have a late planned/impromptu BBQ. As expected, with this late of a notice, brought up the night before, not a lot of people showed. But that's ok, less to cook;) The original plan was to do some BBQ'n and then hit the range, but because BBQ'n takes a lot of time and by the time we would have been done eating and cleaning up, we would have miss the window for the range visit. They close at 4pm. So, we decided to do the opposite, and everything worked out perfect.

We hit the range and was also accompanied by Rave Boy and GF. The Warden had brought down the Kimber as well as his 38, SIG and TRP. We got two lanes and while I started hitting the targets in front of me, The Warden was instructing Rave Boy and GF in the second lane. My aim was not as true this time as it was the last, but didn't do too bad either. Got all shots on the target sheet and even three of ten shots in the 20 ring, at twenty five yards! Not too bad for me:) Rave Boy and GF didn't do too badly either, and both seemed to have had fun. All in all, range day was a success. Next comes the BBQ'n

As for who did, or did not show? The Professor was not going to make it because he had chores to do at home, but he did show up just a an hour or so before everything was cleaned up. He had some food and chatted. The Acupuncturist could not make it due to previous plans, so did not show. The only ones left and did show were Rave Boy and GF. As for the BBQ itself, everything rolled like clockwork. Even though we were in no rush, we didn't seem to stop at any one moment, thinking that there's nothing to do - everything seemed to have flowed like water. Awesome!

The Warden prepared chicken Adobo, stuffed mushrooms, and Portabella mushrooms with ground beef.

I started up the BBQ and cooked two filly's, two tri-tips, hot Italian sausages, and sliced red and green bell peppers, as well as the rice - all the while sipping on twelve year old Scotch;)

After the great food, and some chatting, I began the clean-up effort. Clean-up went just as smooth as butter. The Professor left for his home and we all agreed to meet at his place for some pyrotechnic fun - burning things!

And thus ends a perfect day:)

sketches - June 1209

It's been a trying week filled with the sickness that is the common cold, at least that's what it seems like anyway. Caught the damnable thing from the Warden, who got it from fatigue and snoring all night long last Wednesday. I could hear the sawing of logs from his room - he confirmed the illness the next day. Although I had suggested to him that if he did not feel well, to stay home and recover. But he did not head my advice and came up to hang out. As always, it was great to hang with the Warden, but when he left, he did not take everything with him - and he admitted so! I felt the disease Monday morning with a slight sore throat. First thing that I did, after cursing the foo, was to start eating raw garlic. Yes, raw garlic, with food of course. Can't eat those things raw without burning all the taste buds and setting the nerves on fire - pure torture! I do believe they did help quite a bit because the symptoms were relatively mild compared to what a cold usually felt like.

Took Tuesday off because I didn't want to get anyone at work sick and get blamed for it. Pretty much stayed in bed all day to try and recover. Throat felt sore but was not "sand paper" sore like it usually gets when I catch a cold. More garlic with all meals I ate. Woke up Wednesday soaked in sweat, but felt well enough to go to work. The rest of the day was uneventful, the same for Thursday and Friday.

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Went climbing Saturday with a couple of co-workers at the Planet Granite in the City. It was Gorgeous day in the Marina District. Had lunch together then chilled for the evening.

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It was hard getting up Sunday morning when the jogging friend called around ten in the morning. Postponed that jog til noon and we completed eight miles, woohoo! The rest of the day was just trying to relax for the coming week at work. I'm going to need it because we have a big push for a milestone at the end of the month. I'm anticipating long days and nights. Can't wait for the upcoming Mendocino trip! Did laundry, chores, and though I received the new rotors for the other half's car, did not get a chance to put them on. That will have to wait for the following week.

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End of transmission...

sketches - June 0209

It's been a busy few weeks at work. As for the past few days, I have been busy being "the Cleaner", with a laundry list of things to do in and around the house. With the other half coming home in a few weeks, it will not do to have a messy reception - heads will roll! Besides, I was also fed up with the mess as well. Since I am forced to take PTO for this week, that is what I have set out to do. The insides are pretty much in order, now need to make some time for the outside. I will need to fertilize and mulch the lawns and pull out the three foot weeds waving at me from the fence line - I'll give them a wave real soon... Gave the patio table top and two chairs one coat of Danish oil, and they will need at least a few more by this weekend. The rains do not help, and why on Earth is it raining in June!?!?! I'm also thinking about getting some new plants and trees for the side planters, but we'll see how much time I have:p

Going to the Warden's house tomorrow to hang out for a day, and I'll be unplugging this old ass computer and bringing it with me for him to help upgrade. I'm still running 2K and it can't run shit anymore, much less games:( While I'm at the Warden's, I think we will hit the rage for some target practice, hee, hee. I liiike...

As for today, went mattress shopping in the morning and got one purchases and delivered on the same day, today! Frikin sweet! You see, it was necessary because I'm tired of waking up everyday with lower back pain! I hope I can finally get a decent nights sleep from this night forth!!!

With the bed all set up, I drove to meet the Sketch Friend in SF. It was a beautiful day at the Marina today, and I asked to meet there because I felt like changing it up a bit from the local book store we usually go to. We were only sketching for about a half hour before the winds started to pick up - it was damn cold! so with only one finished sketch, we hit a cafe to warm ourselves up a little before we went our separate ways. We'll try it again another time.

sketches May 2009

Crazy busy with work and tired as hell.

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I love my new bike! Took it on a maiden ride last Sunday, after Bay to Breakers, in the Berkeley Hills with the ex-coworker who use to ride it all the time. This is the third time riding up Tunnel Road. Unlike the first time with my old road bike, which was a total bitch due to being out of shape, or the second time, which was easy with granny gears on the mountain bike. I was psyched for nothing! The ride was, in my opinion, moderate. It was pretty much around 5.54 miles of medium accent, which I think is much less of an incline than say Ralsten Avenue, which I will try and tackle this Friday morning.

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Over and out.

sketches May 0509

Tuesday nights are usually bouldering nights, but since a co-worker wants to do figure sketching, I decided to do the same. The only place that I know of, that's close to home, is the figure drawing workshop at the Palo Alto Arts Center, off of Embarcadero and Newell Rd.

They have open workshop every Tuesday nights that's open to the public, and cost $5 a session. I think climbing will shift to Wednesdays and Saturday mornings, got a membership so might as well milk it for all it's worth.

Sketches - April 2609

sketches - March 2409

This one goes out to the Warden

Last night I had the weirdest dream, I dreamt about zombies! That's right! Zombies! There were a lot of them in front of me, and I don't have any weapons to defend myself with! I was freakin paralyzed from fear! That woke me, slightly, but I feel right back to sleep.

Back in the dream, I noticed that I was on the steps of a church, and that the zombies were not coming up the steps after me. The zombies just milled around at the foot of the steps as if being stopped by some invisible barrier. Then I kind of "stepped back", or rather "floated back" into a third-person perspective, looking back at myself. But the thing was, I was not "myself", per say, but Steve Austin!

I thought to myself; Why the he'll am I scared? I'm freakin Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man, with freakin Kong-fu grip! Put a machete into my hand and I can decapitate a zombie with one swipe! I can run through a crowd of zombies so fast that by the time they reacted, it would be too late! Their heads are gone!!! And even if I was cornered in a dead end alley, it would not matter, because I can super leap my ass outa there. If I was backed into a wall, I can leap up, and at the apex, punch my fist into the wall to stop myself from falling, and then kick the wall in with both my feet and repeat that kicking all the way up and climb to safety!

Then the alarm went off and woke my ass up...bizarre.

sketches - January 2609

A rare occasion these days, I'm sure, but here it is, a long awaited update of the missing blog sketches. Perhaps it's because I have been drinking Scotch all freakin night and in need of some entertainment and amusement - I sure need a muse... Happy freakin Chinese New Year! I sure hope it'll be better than the last one.

I need to get some banannas at Safeway, be seeing you.

sketches - December 0408

Well, looks like my hiatus from blogging has been called out by The Discourser. To tell the truth, I have not been feeling myself since I’ve got back from my eight month tour at the outer office of The Corporation. I feel that I have changed, mentally, from burning the candle on both ends for over twelve months. Though the experience was great, it has also utterly depleted my END reserves, and my REC is piss poor – need to buy that up somehow. I really want to crawl under a warm rock and sleep for six months and maybe that’ll clear my head, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon, unless I win the lottery or something, hahaha, I digress. Anyway the point is that my head is a bit empty, hence the lack of sketches. Hopefully things will get better with the coming of the New Year, but in the meantime, I will try and get my mind off of its lazy ass and find some motivation to sketch more. If this lack of motivation persist, then I'm going to need some professional help, so if anyone knows of a good head shrink, pass that info along:p

sketches - November 0108

Happy Día de los Muertos! This week has blown by quit fast. Finally got some of the reference photos from the plein air paintings I've been doing printed up on 8x10s, so I can touch up/finish them.

sketches - October 1608

The beginning to the middle of last week totally sucked. I did not get a decent nights rest for over half the week and was tired and unfocused at work because of it. Well, I was also not really into work, I just feel like some thing's missing, but at least there is one thing at work that's starting to get me excited.

I am starting to get a little excited about all the positive reviews of Dead Space. Since I've been buried under the stress of making this game for the past year, I feel that this project has taken a lot out of me, and now that it's out in stores, It's good to see the fruits of that hard work finally paying off. It is just too bad that I was not able to create any extensive content on this project due to the constant supervision of the content team in Shanghai, but I am very proud of the work that they have done, and so have everyone else on the team.

Last weekend was full of physical activities. I was planning on a bike ride with some co-workers on Saturday, but that didn't happen due to other commitments that they had forgotten, and so I went riding by myself. Started from the abode and headed down Delaware towards Twenty Fifth Avenue. From Twenty Fifth Avenue, I then turned North on Palm Avenue, went through Central Park and then up Fifth Avenue to connect up with Crystal Springs Road. Crystal Springs Road meanders through a long valley and connects to Highway 35. From there, I took San Andrea Valley Road (Sawyer Camp trail) all the way North and exited at the top Hillcrest Boulevard, at which point I turned down Highway 35 to Millbrae Avenue, and coasted all the way down to almost reaching El Camino - that was totally awesome, I hit a top speed of about forty five miles an hour. From the bottom of Millbrae Avenue, I turned South, meandered through parallel streets all the way home. My ride was indicated by a GPS distance reading of twenty miles.

Sunday was a planned jog with another co-worker. In the morning I went through my usual routine in preparation for all my jogs, which is the consumption of at least two liters of water, and maybe an energy drink of some kind. After a few hours, I was totally hydrated. I find that if I do not hydrate, I will get cramps, and that totally ruins the jog. The co-worker dropped by a little after noon, and we headed back up to the start of Sawyer Camp Road. By the half way point, a little over three and a half miles, I had to take a break - my shins were tight and sore. After a quick restroom break, we headed back to the beginning. I told the co-worker to go on ahead because he was a much stronger jogger than me, I am a totally slow jogger, and I was totally dying by the time I had reached the beginning of the trail. I think I would have done better if it were not for the previous days ride.

sketches - October 1408

Middle of last week I got an email call-out for landscape painting for that Saturday. The plan was for a two o'clock meeting around the southern tip of Lake Merced, south-west of the City. I was a bit apprehensive about the time because it is Fall and the sunlight starts changing drastically by late afternoon. I tried to get them to go out earlier in the day, but to no avail. By the time we had met at the designated location, it was already past two. The location that was specified was not all that great in terms of "scenery", and so we all decided to go to another location on the North-East side of the lake, by SF State.

The new location seemed OK. By the time we had all set up, it was near three o'clock. The place that I had set up to paint was a little out in the open with no protection from the massive winds that were starting to pick up as the day wore on. At one point, a gust was so strong that it toppled my easel over along with my open palette of paint. It was quite annoying to have to scrape off a bunch of sand covered paint and squeeze out a new set. Two hours into the painting, I was cold, and my fingers were totally numb from the wind chill. Frustration also came on as the light kept changing faster than I could mix and lay down the colors, but no matter, I had brought my camera and took reference photos so I can complete the painting at home, where it will be nice and warm.

sketches - October 0808

Went to the drawing workshop at work last night, but that was not that great. The instructor was lecturing on facial expressions and so there were not a lot of figurative poses. Any figurative poses were only five minutes long, I decided to check out the walk-in drawing shop down at the Palo Alto Art Center, thinking that there would be hour long poses.

What I found out was that the longest poses were twenty minutes, way too short for me to really get a good drawing out or do a painting. There were quite a few people there, too, at least twenty five! I believe there's always two models working together on any given pose. What's good is that the sessions were only five bucks for the three hours that it goes on for - good if you want more practice. So, Supergoober, if you are up for that, let me know.