Final Projects!

It's that time again....

my final project for Props and Environments, a three page short story, turned out to be the most girly thing I've done in quite a while. And I still can't get the hang of digitally adding gray scale. It's inexplicable. But this was a fun project regardless. :D

For Shawn's Visual Story Telling II class, I decided to do the backstory of a couple of under-developed characters from a book I pitched Oni a while back. I'm crunched for time on this one, and yeah, still not sure what I'm doing with my inks, so I just sorta decided to go a little far out and crazy with at least this part of the story. XD; I LOVE COLOR :O!

BACK TO FINALS WORK. NO SLEEP FOR CARA FOR A WHILE :(

Someday I'll be cool...

Man, once I get started I just can't stop, can I?
Seems like all the cool kids are posting pencils these days, so in an effort to be hip, here're the roughs for my final project ;P

(I'm going to eliminate panel two--the empty one-- and just extend panel three, other wise the pacing is all wonky)

So, I gotta finish inking these suckers, use Illustrator to throw some word balloons on some OTHER pages I just finished coloring with Photoshop, rough out an eight page western, and wrap up a break down and finish up character designs for another project I'm working on.

I gotta tell ya, I'm glad I get to go home for vacation next week @_@ Hopefully I wont be going home to yet another debacle where my parents threaten to not let me return. Again. If they do, you all have permission to call them and leave angry voicemails. I'm more confident this time, at least, since now I have an apartment here, and, you know, I cant leave all my shit here >8[

Possibly Very Bad News

Um, okay, so... this fall.

I can't afford tuition. This is almost exactly the same as what happened last year, except then my parents pulled through and got the PLUS loan to help cover costs. This year they refuse to do it again, and I'm having a hard time figuring out where I'm going to find the money. I'm calling the bank tomorrow about a loan, so wish me luck with that. As it is right now... there's a very real possibility I wont be returning to SCAD (at least not until next year).

Now, I already have my plane ticket to come back to Atlanta at the end of the month, so I'll be back in town regardless, but here's where more bad news comes in.
There's no promise the Borders there will hire me back (they never hired Carlton back, and have said they dont want to hire anymore SCAD kids anyway), so I wouldn't have a definite job.
Okay, but then it gets worse. My aunt, who I live with in Atlanta when I'm not at Spring House, recently lost her job and has put her house on the market. So... even when I do get back, I have no idea where I'll be able to live.

So guys, I'm like, reaching to you for help. Or advice, really. I just don't know what to do. I've tried emailing Financial Aid earlier this week and have not heard back, and cant get ahold of the office on the phone.
What have you all been able to do to cover bills?
Do you know anyone that needs a room mate?
Do you know any place (within MARTA range) that's hiring right now?
General advice? D8


I'm like, seriously distressed and shedding a few tears over this. This is exactly why I didn't really want to come back home for the summer. I knew my parents would just start to make me feel guilty about going to such an expensive school, and then stubbornly insist that I transfer to a cheap, local school or something.
fkajlkdsjflad

I just dont even know guys.


(Also posted on Facebook)

Time to play Catch Up

Poor neglected blog. Lots of things have been happening though, and life has been crazy as the semester has started to wind down.

1. I got an internship at Gaijin Studios along with Jackie, Tommy, and Domo X) Unfortunately I'm not really going to get into it until the fall semester, but I'm really psyched about it. I know I'll get a lot out of it.

2. Went down to Savannah for Editors day last weekend, along with Shawn, Chris, Megs, Allan, and Pat. Got lots of good feedback from all sorts of professors and editors--Oni Press, DC, Slave Labor, Del Ray--and met lots of really cool people. I felt a little discouraged for a day or two afterwards, but I've had time to reflect and re-motivate myself, so now I'm ready to bust ass this summer and get my work in gear.

3. Um... I thought there was more. I went to Cartoon Network yesterday 8D; Fun times... Now it's time for finals chaos! Good heavens. Wish me luck.

But then...Summer plans!

A. As I said, I'm going to be studying as much as I can while on break. As many observational drawings as I can get in, and anatomical/inking studies. I think I'm pretty good with pacing and storytelling, I just need to find a way to get my sequential pages to look as nice as my illustrations...

B. Working at the Bookstore again X) I love it there, really~ Easy job, awesome people, and cheap books! Wins all around!

C. Driving to A-kon the day after I fly back to Texas, then flying BACK to Atlanta to drive up for HeroesCon *_*; And I'll be back AGAIN early for the fall semester so I can make it to Dragon*Con X)

Let's see....
As my poor professors well know, I'm just really bad about getting around to scanning my work. I HAVE been doing drawings for all of the Temple of Cartoon Mojo Sketch Challenges this semester... they're all just still in my sketchbook 8D; But here's a few things I actually have gotten around to scanning...
We'll start with the Venture Brothers (omg new season soon *A*)
And last week I drew Eddie from The Damned 8D


Aaaaaand, here's the creature I'm working on for Creature Anatomy. I'll try to remember to scan the study sketches Shawn's made me do for it. I can definitely say this has been the first actually really challenging class I've taken at SCAD so far... animals are just not anything I can draw instinctively, so I cant fudge as much stuff as I can normally get away with XD;;;


Oh! Offer! If anyone wants a customized Blogger layout, just let me know, and I'll try to hook you up. I like making them, but it gets ridiculous if I keep changing the layout here all the time ^^;; And it will give me good design practice for over the summer!

I don't know what's up with all of these videos lately. But me and my friend Matt (A.K.A. Scott Pilgrim A.K.A. Jim Halpert) were in the Temple of Cartoon Mojo at like, 2 in the morning, and it seemed like a good time to make a video blog. So enjoy, and grab a peek at my storyboards 8D



Dear Professors that may watch this,

I was kidding about the BSing thing. Really. You know me, I'm a serious business art student. I'm just... somewhat lazy 8D;;; AT LEAST I ADMIT IT ;_; I'll get better, I promise.

Love,

Cara

OH MAN, SHORT STORY AND STORYBOARDING FINALS IN... A FEW HOURS. SO NOT READY YET ;___;

...you know, I still haven't figured out how to add titles to my posts.... sigh. And here I had you all fooled that I knew my way around HTML.

This Weeks Temple of Cartoon Mojo Challenge was Iron Man~
I've never read an Iron Man comic, and the only time I've read him in anything was the Civil War arc and my impression of him was "Rich Jerk-off", so that's what I drew. Then Nolan told me he was a drunk, so I threw in an empty liquor bottle behind him and added "boozles" around his face 8D Ta Da!


Last week was Blade Runner, and even though I'd never seen it before, I still gave it a shot 8D;

No new art with this post, sorry. :(
I've been kicking around the idea to start a sequential arts club here at SCAD-Atlanta again. I figure I could get work to give me an additional Friday off every month for meetings, plus I normally have Tuesdays and Thursdays off anyway for planning...
There's a number of reasons I want to start the club, really. Here in Atlanta I can see that those students that aren't influenced by if not drawing with an anime/manga style are really limiting themselves, not just by confining themselves TO anime/manga, but really by confining themselves to what's only available in America. Really guys, there's enough Naruto and Inu Yasha-esque crap being put out. It's time to dig a little deeper and explore what's out there.
Also, sticking with the manga thought stream, there's a lot of symbolism in manga that is unfamiliar to western readers that haven't like, grown up with it. I never even considered this until Shawn and Chris brought it to my attention last semester. These are things that I've always just taken for granted. Meanwhile though, I HAVE noticed that a lot of people that DO read manga could tell you WHAT a symbol or expression means, but not WHY (i.e. why guys get nosebleeds in manga/anime to symbolize arousal. Manga artists figure "Hey, all that blood's gotta go SOMEWHERE, but we obviously can't show the NATURAL reaction in a childrens comic...")

I'm going off on a tangent and I'll be running late for class soon.
Basically I just feel like SCAD-Atlanta has students interested in soooo many different comic genre's that I feel we'd all really benefit by getting together and sharing what we know. I feel like already I've matured as an artist just by being open to reading a lot more western comics, and I'm really eager to read more.
Long-reaching goals for a club would be things like having Drawing Jams like, once a week or month or something and, ideally, putting out a comic anthology showcasing the Atlanta students and faculty. Maybe we could have guest speakers come in (there's plenty of comic/manga artists in the Atlanta area). Field trips are a possibility!

See, I'm getting excited again. It's just a lot to commit too when I've got two studio classes, a writing class, and a job that expects me in 30 hours a week :\ I'll see if I can't find some classmates that'd be interested in helping....

CLASS TIME!

8| No new art right now since, well, December's been an insane month, but also I've already packed away all of my drawing pads/supplies in order to move back into the dorms this weekend. School starts up again on Monday and I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things again. I've reached the point, with school and work, where I just don't feel motivated to work on art unless it's an assignment, which is frustrating. I did sit down on New Years and, along with my resolutions, actually wrote out short synopses of all the stories I'd been kicking around but hadn't really put down on paper. I sort of surprised myself with how many I had, and hopefully I'll be able to churn some of them out more completely in the Short Story course I'm taking this semester.
I'll also be taking Advanced Storyboarding/Character Design with Nolan Woodard again, which I'm really looking forward to. I looked over the roster for that class and some of the other students in there are like, really intimidating (i.e. Alex, Darnell, etc.), but I know it's gonna be a blast. Of course I'm eager to start Drawing for Sequential Art with Shawn and really start finessing my skills more. I learned a TON in the Intro class last fall, so I know that I'll be getting a lot out of this quarter. Even if the student roster for THAT class made me cringe, just a bit.

Aaaaah, I'm just so ready to go back and start drawing again! I feel like I've been a useless Retail Wench all during break. Failure.