Socal Regionals Bound!

Tournament season is always an invigorating time for folks in the Fighting Game Community. Folks are polishing their skills, there's a collective hype for new technology and high level play that'll be unleashed, and rivalry along with camaraderie is at it highest.

Competitive fighting games may have a fairly niche interest, but it's hard to deny the energy and intensity that builds over the course of a major tournament, that then explodes at the peak of grand finals.

Socal Regionals is one of the majors that take place here in California and is set to take place this month. With many of my peers completing and the venue being UCI, I'm wondering if I'm more excited about this than Christmas. I won't be completing this year, but will be assisting with J&J Mods table, where there'll be custom art and commissions available! Drop by and give me your favorite character that you want to see rendered by me!

Preview detail: Juri, SSFIV

November thoughts. In freestyle.

Keep makin' that money. Live the American Dream
I make steady flow and get overdrafts every week
It's like playing hide and seek
Was just bout to leave then I got the raise
Now I'm gotta stay through the holidays

Glory

I had the incredible experience of seeing Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp live at the Cerritos Preforming Arts Center. These two original cast members from one of my favorite shows, Rent
were one of the primary things that pulled me into the musical theatre world, so it was definitely an awesome opportunity to see them. It was years ago that I used to listen to Adam's music; raw, distinctive and versatile, so witnessing his performance and meeting him was more of a 'proud moment for an old friend' than a star-struck experience. A humble guy.
Check out some of current work at www.meandlarry.com.

A Return to Restlessness?

I've been quite lazy.
Now, that 'lazy' can be relative...I've definitely been working on some interesting projects and collaborating with some great people to get things off the ground, but I've been getting my full 7 + hours of sleep nightly and that's too comfortable. Average amount of sleep I should be getting to stay healthy you say? ...feh.
So here's working towards restlessness. To my own projects that keep me up far too late, but let me rest knowing I've accomplish things I set out to do. Which may include not letting months go by without blog updates.

For now, a trailer for Spectrum, an iOS game that did keep me restless over the summer. I had the privilege of working with students at USC as the game's visual director and artist. One of the most interesting projects I've been apart of, and I hope to be apart of it till the day it hits the market!



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Anatomy of Art

To start, a Happy New Year to those who celebrate the Lunar calendar(aka 'Chinese New Year') I spent most of the day in bed sick, and because of that I felt the need to start today productive. So my first update to this blog for 2011 was a fine place to start.

I was recently fortunate to be selected in PrintZero Studio's first publishing of their annual Print Exchange, 2010 edition.

My print, 'We Lost Ourselves' was one of 35 of nearly 300 submissions to be included in their catalog. I thank all those who sent me congratulations, which made the work even more worth it. Though also, I thank a few who honestly replied with, "Why?" Why did you draw this? Why would they chose it?

Well. Perhaps inspired by my great, wise friend Amy Scheidegger and her Artistic Rebuttal, I'm going to break down my thought process behind this art. Will those be reasons to why it was selected? maybe not. But maybe you'll find it enlightening.

The Concept: My personal work often falls in this category: figurative, theatrical, with narrative elements. In what I do, I'm interested in conveying some story relating to the Human Condition. My starting point for this was saying farewell. To bring a close to a chapter, cutting it from your life, the end. The visual is a woman, perhaps in her home, cutting up the photo of a man. We don't know their relation, but it is unimportant. She looks to be asleep, maybe because it's something she can't bring herself to do coherently.

This piece alludes to a print I did in the past, 'I Take A Little Off the Top' where cutting signifies bringing an end to something for relief.

The Elements: Every visual we see contains some combination of the elements and principles of art, but here, I'll highlight a few of the major details I included.

We're naturally drawn to the human face, so it's important to include details to pull the viewer throughout the picture plane. Here, though it is subtle, the space created by the foreground hand is in close vicinity and mimics the shape and details of the head.

In this same area, though we know the hand created depth of space, the visual repetion pulls and relates pieces together. The woman's arm completes a pattern of fingers.

Among my favorite artists, the late Paul Hartley taught me the appreciation for repeated lines. This repetition is subconscious, but visually holds the picture together.

Again, repleted lines to create repetition in the image. The blue angles serve as arrows which are an advertent choice to keep you within the image though there is a figure who is outwards and cut off. I commonly decide on cropping figures because it's visually interesting to me, so it's important to pull the viewer back into the picture with such elements.

While on the subject of the cut figure, it's safe to assume that the man's face is his, as it visually 'completes' his body. And hey, weren't we pointed directly to it?










The Execution: This is a plate etching done by carbine-tip needle, printed in Daniel Smith Standard Black ink on Rives BFK paper.

So there you have it. The thought process behind one of my pieces of art. Tune in next time!

Thanksgiving update

This month has been busy and it's always around this time folks final come to be thankful for things. Not I.

Oh, not that I'm an ungrateful person. It's the opposite. I'm seriously one of those sappy, 'I'm so thankful everyday' people. Yeah. It might make some sick if they could hear me. I guess Thanksgiving does give folks that chance to, even if they are thankful people, to just vocalize it. The big glorious dinner is just extra. Ok, I'd be dumb and a liar to not acknowledge it's ALL 'bout that Thanksgiving feast!

I spent mine in shifts waiting in line at Fry's Electronics. It'd been awhile since I'd camped outside in a tent. On concrete. Pretending like you're a hobo can be quite fun.

Earlier this month was the incredibly hype premiere of Socal Regionals held in Los Angeles, CA which had one of the most amazing grand finals I've witnessed in any gaming event. With Norcal Dhalsim player Fillipinochamp convincingly defeating Daigo to claim the champion title in SSFIV, why, I felt proud to be an American!

Comfortable Company

There's an etching I created a short time back titled 'Comfortable Company'. In it is a portrait of a girl slouching in her couch with a crimping tool to her left. The crimping tool itself serves as a symbol of finishing an end, but also a personal reminder of how I met this person, through Fedex where this tool is used.

Anyway, I though back to that title after a recent afternoon with good folks. Because sometimes, all you need in the hectic world is that comfortable company of a good friend. It's something I never take for granted. One of my good friends who I don't often get to spend the company with these days is Amy, who resides in Philly.. She's started a new blog: http://illustrativehistorians.wordpress.com/ worth checking out for a great read in things of art advocacy.

Now go spend the afternoon with some good folks.