'Twas the Night Before School...

...when all through the apartment,

Paced an excited young man who left the Fine Arts Department.

Hoping to make toys for chillun' all across the land,
He took paper, pencil, and marker in hand!
"A new year awaits!" he shouted, jumping with glee.
"New people, new professors, new places to see!"
Sweat, blood, and spirit over a two-year duration,
"MY TOYS SHALL BE KNOWN ALL ACROSS THE NATION!"

"Hee-hee, hoo-hoo, bwa-ha-ha-hah!"

"The world will be mine, la~la~la~la!"

***

Dear readers of Sharp Will, Dull Blade,

I have been a negligent blogger. I have left several of you writhing on your floors like drooling addicts craving your next hit. That's what I have been led to believe by a certain few people, anyway *coughalexandsaicough*

So I apologize for not blogging over the summer. Thinking back, there wasn't anything worth broadcasting to the world. Except for my nephew's powerful cute-fu.

Is he not the cutest thing you have ever seen? He is...9 months old? Or almost. Maybe almost 10. I'm a bad uncle.

So, yeah. Summer. Went to California for a wedding. Went home and semi-vegetated for a few weeks. Got some wisdom teeth removed. Came back to my cozy lil' NY apartment.

***

I read a ton of comics over the summer after getting back in to Western mainstream stuff back in May. I've decided that I am a Marvel guy and I really enjoy the Avengers books. I read the first volume of New Avengers (from after Disassembled to Siege) and Dark Avengers. I didn't realize that Mighty Avengers was also part of the saga, so that's on my list, too. Right now, I'm reading Invincible Iron Man, most of the new Avengers books, and some random DC things. I'm really excited about New York Comic-Con this year because I'll actually be familiar with artists and writers and will try to get stuff signed!

I've also recommenced my bass guitar self-edumacation. Seeing Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (saw it twice and want to see it again!) inspired me. Now I really want to be in a band, but I won't really have time for that. Ukulele-ing is slow, though. I haven't progressed much on that front, especially when compared to last summer.

***

Today, I finished my summer marker rendering assignments for Toy Design. Earlier this summer, we had a workshop where we learned how to do compose and render a toy board. It was pretty much review from the Intro to Toy Design class I took, but we got a little more in-depth with the rendering aspect.


I'm pretty happy with how they came out; at the very least, I've gotten better at staying in the lines when rendering.

***

To say that I'm excited to start this semester would be a gross understatement. Meeting new people, learning new things...I'm finally going to do what I wanted to do in college. I don't mean to discount the last two years I've had; My time in Fine Arts was awesome! I met some great friends and professors and grew a lot as an artist. But, starting this semester, I get to take my first steps into the world of design! Not just design for the sake of aesthetics or controversy, but design with purpose and practicality.

With the workload of the program, I may not be able to update the blog as often as I'd like. There might not even be a lot I can talk about; I don't want to give any toy companies free ideas! However, I'll do my best to make at least one post a week offering a vague description of what goes on in the Toy Design program. Or post something random and spontaneous, like this short film my friend from high school stars in:

I laughed out loud at least five times. Asian people crack me up! I giggle every time I look in the mirror.

***

Aaaaand that's a wrap for now. To everyone who has kept up with my blog over the past few years: I think you're crazy for wasting your time reading about the thoughts and artwork of a silly Asian kid. Thank you so very much for reading.

Stay tuned! Things are gonna get crazy.

-J

Operation: Nursery = SUCCESS! And more!

After 2.5 weeks of planning and painting, the nursery is finally complete! I can now resume my normal summer life of sitting around and trying to be productive (and failing)

The entrance

Right corner

Left Corner

The hillside/crib wall

Complimentary Color Tractor. Coincidentally, those were my high school colors. Not done on purpose...I wanted something else purple (other than Grumpydactyl) and I had some extra yellow sitting out.

Becker Dam and Lake feat. Grupydactyl, Elie the Corgi, and the Duck Duck Family.

Barn of Boxes with solar panels and Mudpigs

Zoomed-out picture of main wall

Sky!

The last day was spent primarily painting the sky and clouds. I didn't buy enough of the light blueish white to cover the whole ceiling, so I had to mix another light blue, which is why there's a huge white cloud and a lot of blue. I think it worked out well. The edges of the ceiling clouds and all of the wall clouds were painted using a sponge.

I had a lot of fun painting the room and look forward to Baby Becker crawling around...then walking around....then wondering why his/her uncle is so awesome...then wanting to paint the room black. Crazy kids!

Anyway, it was nice to get out of the house for a while and do something where I had a lot of creative freedom.

*****

Summer is almost over! I have less than a month before I get to move back into the dorms at FIT. August 20th can't come sooner. I'm starting to run out of things to do here!

*****

With the last month or so of summer, I finally actually have stuff that I want to get done.

First up is this Bayonetta art contest. Basically, you have to draw your own version of the crazy femme fatale with lady with guns and e-mail it to Wizard for fan voting. I've never been good at drawing smexy females, so I kinda wanna dive this a try, as poorly as it might turn out.

Second, I opened up an Etsy account. I don't have anything on my store, but I did see some cool Ukulele Straps and decided to invest in one. If I ever put something up on the shop, I'll post it here! I'd like to make a few Ganpens to put up on the site. I can't believe I didn't think about Ganpen on Etsy before...

*****

If ya have a Twitter, check me out!

*****

In the past, I've tried to keep my nerdiness under covers, but...
This is out right now. I want it SO badly. I LOVE Gundam models and Exia is one of my favorites. The Ignition Mode comes with extra parts! IN CHROME! SOAWESOME!

*ahem*

That about does it, folks! Expect another update whenever I decide to get of my lazy arse and do some artwork. I haven't been painting at all this summer (oil painting, anyway) so I expect I'll be really rusty when I get back to school. I haven't been drawing anywhere near the amount I should, but I'm working on that by starting up an art boot camp to get myself ready for the coming school year.

Looking forward to the end!
Of summer, that is.

-J

Lazy Summer Days

*insert lame excuse for no updates here*
This might be a pretty long post...

Summer has been pretty darn good since the last update. Recently, the Durham Arts Council opened their annual exhibit featuring the work of members of the Durham Art Guild. As a junior member, I had this piece on display:
The Death of Tomorrow

I think this is the first time any work of mine has actually been in a public exhibit place, so I feel honored to be a part of it. Apparently, the drawing was awesome enough to win 2nd place and score me some munnies!



Pictured above is what is currently on my makeshift workbench. Production has been slow because of a lack of space.


I got tired of using black, so here are some experiments...


Another PenZilla for my karate master.



And a friend wanted a ZombiePen, so here is a new version. As you can see, there are exposed rib bones and a number of new wounds.

I move to New York City on the 15th of August. From the 6th of August to the 13th of August, I'm going to be in California for a few weddings. Time is running short, so I'm trying to tie up some loose ends here. A lot of that is finishing some games and work that I can't take with me. GanPen production will probably be put on hiatus for a few months, at least until I figure out if I can work on them un the city.

On to some other news! On July 12th, I officially earned my black belt in Ishhin-Ryu Karate!
It was a very exhausting test, especially since I was testing alone; this meant there was little time to catch my breath and little energy from the outside to feed off of. As per tradition, I walked away with a few injuries. Both my feet had bruised heels from attempts at breaking bricks. The big toe on my right foot was black and blue underneath the nail because of a brick falling on it after a break. We had to take a drill bit and drill a few holes in the nail to release the blood and pressure. And my right wrist is bruised because of another break attempt.

All my injuries were pretty much self-inflicted...
Weird.

Other notables include having to fend off 5 really big guys (and promptly being thrown around like a rag doll), showing off my hand speed, and having a board broken over my head.

Here's a parting pic of me and my master, Shaw-sensei



Until next time!

Long time no update, eh?

After a nice two week period of (relative) relaxation, it's time for me to be productive again!

Now, now, I'm sure you're thinking, "Wait a sec, Jordan! It's been almost a month since you last updated! You've been relaxing for a really, really long time!"

And I'd like to respond: "Incorrect, Dear Reader! My last few weeks of high school were rather hectic! I hardly had time to update my blog in between the final projects and sessions of Team Fortress 2!"

In short, yes, I have been quite lazy. But since summer is here (has been here for a few weeks), I can finally update on a semi-regular basis. Here's a look at the latest GanPen variation:

(The following images may be considered graphic by some, so TURN BACK NOW if the thought of zombie penguins makes you squeamish!)

ZombiePen!
Commissioned by B.Dean



Check out the brains on this guy!









Forgive the low quality of the shots, but I only had my cell phone camera on me. The "zombification" was done using a handy Dremel Stylus to cut away material and Fixit Sculpt to add in some fleshiness, mainly with the brain. Painting was very simple, just a base coat of white, a grey blend, and lots of drybrushed red/pink. The feet and beak were painted with this funky old yellow I got on accident recently. It actually comes out of the bottle looking like it's been sitting around for a few decades.

I have another ZombiePen I'm trying to finish up. Pics of that one coming shortly. I also have a UniPen (UNICORNS!), another PenZilla, and maybe a few other variations, as well as a few standard-issue GanPens coming along.

If you're interested in commissioning a particular GanPen, e-mail me at
jordan.liv@gmail.com
and we can try to work something out. I'm not sure how many more GanPen variations I'd be able to do, but remember! Regular GanPens with a tie color of your choice are still only $20 (plus shipping if you live far away!).

Whew! Time to do something productive!