I've been dying for this day to come for about a week and half. I really am sick of it. I just caught a glimpse of myself in my Flickr thumbnails, and despite being a mo, it doesn't look too bad on me. Or maybe its the loss of ten kilos that really makes a difference *shrugs* who knows?
So, to the sink I shall commend my Mo to, either tonight or tomorrow, and I will become a fresh faced young'un once more. Ok, so I'll leave the flavour saver, I tend too look just a little wrong with no facial hair at all.
I think I will have to grow a little chin fuzz back to get my mojo back. It has been a while. It's my little safety blankie. I don't think I'm gonna grow a scummy long one again; I was checking out photos from Maddy's 21st and damn it looked ragged.
I know a few people will be disappointed that it is going, but I'm sure many more will rejoice. I had a surprisingly warm reception to my v2 mo: handlebar. The first one I grew: the magnum, was met with scornful looks and bad attitudes. The humble mo has a bad rep it seems.
Despite my tash-bashing, I am quite attached to it.
This is my final concept for Design Concept Development Brief 2. As you know from my previous post, we had to come up with several different colour concepts (anything, but only using 2 colours each) and then expand on one.
I had originally wanted to do a 4 page mini-comic introducing a new character to the world. It took me too long to script and storyboard so that when I came to actually illustrate it, I discovered that I was just a little bit more than out of practice.
I hideously rendered the first page and began the second before pulling the plug and deciding to do something that my current skills in packaging and in Illustrator would compliment.
So I came up with this, it's a different take on a comic book cover. It is slightly larger than A5 and is designed as a glued sleeve and contains a coverless comicbook. When I say coverless, I mean that the book inside will all be lightweight paper and will rely on the envelope for protection.
I actually think I'm onto something with this story concept too; if only I weren't the King of Procrastination, I could probably produce something that people would enjoy reading.
The only problem is, now it's 11:55pm the night before the project is due and I still have to come up with 2 other design concepts using colour. I am going to use my unfinished comic work as one of my other ones (red and black being the colours). The problem is, I'm at a bit of a loss.
You see, I had a pretty bad day. I've had a bit of a bad run actually, but I'll focus on today for now.
I was flat out all day today. As usual. But I finally got to work on this red-hot urgent job for a new customer (we need to complete his packaging by the second week in December to get onto a boat for New Zealand so that it gets there before Christmas) and I have to design his packaging. This client is in California.
Anyway, I'm working on his design this afternoon and I'm saving and saving, and it's all going well. I do a fairly big change after doing about 15 minutes of clipping mask around some cherries and click save again.
"Could not complete you request because of an unknown error."
You've gotta be kidding me. So I try to remove certain elements that I know I can recreate quickly, or already exist and try to resave. Nada. This continues for about 20 minutes as my blood-pressure reaches bursting point. Finally, something looks like it's working and it's saving and saving, and then on the last bar. Kaputski.
I think it's time for a reboot.
I bite the bullet and shutdown Illustrator and reboot my computer. Oh, this is all at 4:55pm and I finish at 5.
Computer boots back up and I go to open the last file I had saved successfully.
It's corrupt.
Suddenly letters and numbers are showering down upon me as I realise I've put my fist through my keyboard.
The next hour is a blur of typing and pen work as I recreate the carton as best as I can so that I can email it off to the customer. I leave at 6pm.
I then have to drive down to Officeworks so that I can print my various assignments that I have to hand in tomorrow. I get there and it's the same girl who served me on monday, when I first tried to print out my What Is It Good For print. I'm trying to print it again today, because on monday, certain elements weren't showing up correctly because of transparencies in the Illustrator file that didn't translate proplerly into PDF.
So I've showed up now with a 300dpi JPG file. We plug in my iPod and print away. I still get errors. This time its the contrast settings on their image setter that are fucking with my print. We finally get it sorta printing ok and I decide to walk around the store a bit.
It's then I hear the jingle of the store chime and a voiceover rings out "Would the owner of a black car, registration number..." before they even begin reading the number I start walking to the front. Sure enough, they read out my number. Fuck, what's happened to my car?
I get to the front and there is a car parked behind my car, but wait, my car is on the road. What the fuck?
I get out there, and this Pakistani guy (who was the security guard at Kmart next door) is standing there going, "is this your car?"
It turns out that somehow my car has rolled backwards ever so slowly because and he has turned the corner and thought there was someone backing out. He has flashed his lights because the car wasn't stopping and keeps coming. Scrape.
Now there is a metre long scratch and scrape on the back bumper of my car. The fucker doesn't have insurance either.
I'm fuming.
I get home, cook dinner and somehow fall asleep on the loungeroom floor, not waking up until Maddy gets home at 10:30-something. Fantastic.
I've been in kind of a half-asleep daze ever since.
And I still have to finish off these concepts and do specification sheets for 5 different fonts.
This is my final piece for Typography 2. As you will notice, when comparing it to the image of two posts ago that this is the superior version. Better orientation. Better balance. Better type. Better imagery. Just better. Well, enjoy this peeps, I think it's one of the only pieces I've done that I will be putting up on my wall.
Oh, we lost our game of indoor footy last night. I had two ring-ins tag along with me: Lukey and Muhunglo. It was a shambles, but they played well for not having played before and for Muhunglo not breaking out of a casual strole since the last time he did a runna from a cab.
Not only did we lose the game we were meant to play, but we decided to help another team out by being their oppostion because the team they were meant to play gave them a walkover. So, we decided it would be fun to play another 30 mins in 30 degree heat inside a tin shed. We lost by 100 points. LOL. To be expected I suppose. It could have been worse though; no injuries as far as I'm aware.
I'm not sure if they'll call me back to help them out again, I did play pretty badly. Oh, well. Hopefully they do, man it's fun. Although I did feel my knees begin to ache at the start of the second game, so that wasn't nice :-/
Anyway, I'm in class and I need to really get a move on with my Concept Development project: the comic. I have only done one page (and I'm meant to do 4) and I've only storyboarded the start of page 2. It's due next wednesday.
Ok, so it wasn't that my teacher didn't like my stuff, but she recommended some changes for me to try. I'm working on the crappy eMac again so saving is an arduous task. I'll try to upload a new version by the end of this class though.
Considering I was talking about it yesterday. I think this is the final, I might have to tweak it because my teacher mightn't like it, but that's what it is at the moment.
Less than a week between blogs, you guys should feel special :P
It has been a very busy week for me. On top of work being in peak period at the moment, I have two year-ending assigments due on the 29th of November, and I tells ya, I'm just not feeling the pieces I have chosen to create.
In Typography 2 we have to create an A3 poster composed entirely of type. We had 4 subjects to choose from: Animals, Birds and Marine Life, Cars, Architecture and some other thing that I will be able to clarify later (not that it is really that important). Anyway, I chose the first subject: Animals, Birds and Marine Life.
My first idea was to use lots of news articles about anti-American sentiment and war stories and anti-Bush stuff and portray a falling American Bald Eagle. As my tutor pointed out, that's pretty bloody hard to do. So I went with my second option: a dove with a gas mask and helmet on. Looks pretty cool. However, I can't think of a headline, or catchphrase for it. It's really starting to shit me, and therefore I'm resenting working on it. I'm almost at the stage where I scrap it and start from scratch.
Oh, the other topic was boats *rolls eyes*.
The other thing that is shitting me, is that we are working on these horrid eMacs that are 3 or 4 years old and clunkier than Threepio. So obviously when I'm working with thousands of characters the machine slows to a near halt, and half my class time is spent waiting for the machine to render and save things. So annoying. I might go home to study today. I shall see.
The other project I'm working on at the moment is a 4 page comic I wrote for Design Concept Development. The brief requests us to come up with 4 x 2 colour concepts and develop one of them. Me being me, I chose a comic. unfortunately for me, it's been a while since I've drawn, much less made a comic, so my work is rusty. And again I think I've bitten off more than I can chew. But I was working on the first page last night and it doesn't look too bad. It does need improving though. I also need to produce the other 3 concepts. Lol, I'm a goner.
I also have 2 freelance projects running at the moment. I have a corporate identity in the works for a merchandising company, and I have several hat designs to come up with for a souvenir company. The identity seems to be on hold for now, but the souvenir guy wants his hat designs urgently. Lol, yeah, I'm boned.
What else is the go in my life?
I'm on a diet and have been for 4 weeks today. I've lost 9kgs. It's called the Tony Ferguson diet and it's 1 protein shake for breakfast, 1 piece of fruit for morning tea, then 1 shake (or soup) for lunch, 1 piece of fruit for afternoon tea and then a small palm sized portion of low fat meat (small steak, chicken breast, fillet of fish, falafel etc) and at least 3 cups of vegies. You also have to drink at least 2 litres of water a day. It was hard to start off with, but after the first 48 hours to a week it was ok. I started at 85kg and I'm now 76kg.
The best thing about it is that you can be lazy and lose weight. I mean I'm playing basketball twice a week (not well mind you) so I'm not that lazy, I am getting exercise, but this shit works without having to drain yourself with exercise. If you wanna find out more, check this website out: www.tonyferguson.com
So yeah, basketball. I've been playing really, really poorly of late. I haven't hit a basket in weeks and it's really hard to get used to again. I crashed from a 9 point a game average back down to zero. Lol. And it's not like I'm not putting up shots either. I've been told to keep putting up shots, cos the theory is I'll eventually hit one. Things will probably improve once uni is finished. But that's another 2 weeks and I have plenty of stress in front of me before I can relax.
*sigh*
I started playing indoor footy last week with Scotty, who used to play in our wednesday night basketball team. I found it really fun last week and I dominated in my role as full back. I kept the lardass full forward to only 2 goals after quarter time. So I helped fill in again this sunday and I didn't feel I had quite as much as an impact. I rushed a bit, and made a few mistakes. But hopefully I can make up for that on tuesday night, because they asked me to help fill in again. Oh, we won both games, the first by a point and the second by 4 points.
At least I'm winning at something at the moment :P
Oh, if you guys happen to be bored, head over to deviantART and check out some of the awesome art being done over there. I tell you what, I find it inspiring and intimidating that there are so many good artists and designers out there, and that I am but a hack. But I aim to get better. Much, much better.
Anyway, that's it for me for now, I had better get back to work and get some stuff done before I leave for uni.
Been soooooo long since I blogged. I even had to have Yimmy (AKA James) blog about his life in my absence. That was entertaining to read, not necessarily in a funny way, but I was engrossed. So thanks for that J, I may call on you to blog from time to time.
So my life.
Well, you will all notice that I have updated the look and feel of the website. It should be much easier to navigate now, and offers a lot more functionality. Like the radio.blog I have added to the site with a small smattering of tracks that I personally like (more will be added soon).
Thumbnail links to Flickr and deviantART (which doesn't fucking work and no one at deviantART will give me a reason why). I have also opted to host my images off the site, so there was less fucking around when it came to upload and update them.
The news link is now what my old home page used to look like, it contains all non-important update news, like change of version, updating links and contact details.
So yeah, that's about it for the site. I only have to update the About link, and then the site is done. Muhuhahaha.
What else?
Well as you can see by my Flickr pics that I am fully embracing Movember. I havea healthy handlebar formation growing on my lip of upper. Its not only the mo' takes a lot of getting used to, it's the looks that are cast at me. When I started a regular mo' I was getting dirty looks from people (mainly women), they must have been thinking I was some dirty little perv. Although that may be close to the truth, it isn't something I'm too interested in advertising.
Since growing the handlebar, I must admit that the looks have changed somewhat. Either people know I'm just growing it for Movember, or they are too scared to flash me a wry grin in case it is a permanent facial fixture - in which case if I were the type of person to have grown a handlebar moustache because I thought it suited me, I might also be the type of person to tear someone's scalp off and wear it as a hat.
Maddy is coming to terms with it and hardly notices it now. People at work don't really say anything, but they can't help but look at it, it's pretty funny. What's most funny about it (apart from the appearance of the thing) is that I appear to be doing it for fun, and not for men's health awareness that movember has been officially attached to now. See the details here: Official Movember Website
No one has offered me money, and to be honest I haven't really asked. But if they donate to me, I will donate to the charity, as raising awareness about prostate and testicular cancer and depression is very important. I won't go into why that's important, as most of the people that read this blog will understand why, and the ones that don't will just have to get someone to explain it on a piece of butcher's paper with crayons.
So, money's tight at the moment. Maddy might be moving out if we aren't able to fix the situation. We both aren't able to save money because on top of spending too much on the bills we are paying, we are buying crap and Maddy isn't getting quite enough shifts to break even.
To help fix this I've decided to downgrade from 1.5mbs ADSL to 512 *sigh* That might take a bit to get used to. I'm also going to change my webhost, so my site my be down for a bit soon, but I'll warn everybody before it happens. Just changing those two things will save me a whopping $676 per year, or if you wanna make it look insignificant $13 a week. Once Maddy and I split that correctly, it actually saves me $923 a year and roughly $18 a week.
I think it's a good start.
I might have to post what else is news at a later date. I must do some work :P Speak soon!
