Well, things are moving along for me. I know I haven't been updating my portfolio as frequently as I said I would back in April. Things seldom go as I plan ... I've begun to accept that as my destiny of distractions. Modus operandi de procrastinator? I don't know ... but you get the idea.

Hmmm, so what have I been doing since May? I did a little bit more work on my Team Fortress 2 female character concepts. I'm pretty happy with the way the Heavy turned out even though she is a little more modern than the games original designs of the male characters.

I also touched briefly on my 65 Mustang GT350 3D model. There are just too many things conspiring against me to continue working on this at the moment. I was using my PC at work to build this model, I think I hit a memory or CPU limit on the polygons. Things started slowing down and getting occassional crashes in XSI. On top of that, my employer blocked photobucket.com so transferring of images to home, uploading and then posting became too much of a hassle. I'll get back to this in about a month or two when my home PC is done (oh so close!!).

Somewhere in there I also finished a portrait of Christina Ricci. What?!? What's that you say? I finished an illustration!?! Blasphemy!

Yeah, I was pretty proud of that one. It's been awhile since I sat down and forced myself to go from doodle to completion. I'm happy with it. The pose is rather dull and uninteresting but as an excercise of capturing a likeness of someone famous ... I think it succeeds. I had a few problems with lighting and such, which I humbly asked Steven Stahlberg for help on. He got me going in the right direction again and ... well what else is there to say? DONE!!

I wish it would have received a little more attention and comments in the CGTalk Gallery, but alas the forum just isn't what it used to be back in the day. Needs more Orc or ass to get any attention I suppose. But I digress ...

Just bought a house. So, I'll be moving over the next month or so. I can't imagine I'll get much done during this time, but I am about 30-40% into a new image and have another 6 or more started. Some of these I'll throw up when I'm done. Others I'm keeping for a book that I'm putting together (a little supplemental income never hurts eh?) which I hope to have near complete by ... oops ... HA HA! I almost did it again. No dates! I'm only setting myself up for further distractions and diversions from that goal.

I'll keep you posted.

I'm pretty sure I said here somewhere that I was going to continue the fairy that I had drawn a few weeks back (in my portfolio). So, just to clarify for all those who are wondering, "WTH?!?" ... I can't concentrate on one thing for very long. I was never diagnosed with ADHD but it wouldn't surprise me a bit if I were.

Anyway ... I'm now getting into 3D modeling. I was able to recently acquire a copy of Softimage|XSI 6.5 and I'm currently going through some tutorials and applying what I learn to this little thing. It's been nearly 8 years since I last used a 3D application. I can say that I loved and hated it at the same time. We'll see how it goes this time around.

What else is new? Just waiting on the govt. to send that rebate check so I can get my new PC monster up and running. I got a new contract for some illustrations with my employer today as well. It's always fun to get some of this work to break up the monotony of coding web pages and being PC support.

Well by now, if you are subscribed to my portfolio, you have probably noticed some activity. It has been ages since I have updated my CGPortfolio. And it has been even longer since I actually scheduled some of my time to draw anything. I'm not going to lie ... I've been somewhat lazy and uninspired (disturbing, I know). However, that wasn't the only reason that I had been neglecting my talents.

In 2007 things started to change for me. I quit smoking in July, I stopped changing diapers in September and (I can't go into details) my job got somewhat better in December. Now ... for the untrained eye ... you might not have noticed the significance of those three items. Well, fear not! I shall make it easy for you ... I - have - more - free - time!

Holy Enchilada Señor Nacho! I had almost forgotten what it was like to have a moment for myself. What to do? What can I do? What did I used to do? Oh yeah! I used to draw things! Duh ...

So, it took me a little while to come to the realization that I used to have a life. That I used to enjoy drawing pictures. That CGTalk (or CGSociety if you prefer) wasn't here just for me to validate some other person's post, to nominate some other person's image for CGChoice or to "yuck it up" with the other Forum Leaders and Administrators (yeah we have too much fun in the back offices of CGTalk).

Here I am (again) ... hopefully only for good and productive things in the future. It's been awhile since I finished a CGChallenge (Hapless Heroes - remember that one?). I will work myself up to doing one of those again. It's been nearly 10 years since I did anything with a 3D application. I now have Softimage|XSI Essentials and I am slowly going through a few tutorials. My CGPortfolio has sat dormat for almost 2 years. I plan on adding something at least once every two weeks (to start - we'll see how it goes).

Thanks for reading! Now go draw something ...