Wow.. It's been a long time since I've written anything here...

Been drawing a little bit here and there, then become conveniently distracted with games/movies/tv. Bought some new artbooks to add to my fetish-like collection that is swamping my room

-Shadowline by Iain McCaig - Fantastic artwork by the guy who designed Darth Maul, I also have his Gnomon Workshop DVD's which are fantastic too, volumes of creativity recorded

-Midnight Marauders by Lesean Thomas - another awesome book filled with crisp clean, uber-sexy anime/hip hop flava all round. I am fond of the economy of line he uses

-Battlecry- art of Samurai Champloo - I was hoping this book would be good, but I think in comparison to the previous two is was a major letdown. It's still ok, but not as much content as I was hoping there would be.. or maybe the two other books are wayy sweet?

Mechatronica by Doug Chiang - not sure if that's how you spell the title. All I draw is people (and I don't even do that very well) so this is my help out guide for drawing all things machinery/robotics/awesome tech-y stuff

The Skillful Huntsman by Scott Robertson (sorta) - pretty cool design process book with 4 art students drawing stuff from a Brother's Grimm tale. Interesting how they do things

i think the reason for my artbook fetish is because I am a process pervert... I like looking at the design process of pro artists and learning how they go about doing the amazing things that they do. I think I've learnt the most from conceptual designers and animators as opposed to my previous inclinations toward anime/manga/american comics.

The one super cool thing that I've adopted (inspired from the Doug Chiang book) is using grey copic-like markers (I don't actually use a copic because I'm cheap, and I can't remember what brand I'm using) to block out a super quick form and try and get an impression of something FIRST, then using the pencil and lining in definitive, clean lines. It's remarkable how much time you save instead of my previous fidgeting at the details way too early in the design process. It really does free you up to just scribble something first, and even if it's all wrong and wonky, it'll look sweet after the pencil lines regardless.. It's like when you look at clouds and see images, I'm essentially drawing bubbles of clouds to make it look like something vaguely familiar.. Very fun you should give it a try sometime I'll start putting up some of these doodles soon.

Been watching the anime Soul Eater and it's been very good surprisingly. I haven't watched too much anime in awhile ever since the Naruto Shippuden series went all retarded. But yes it's very funny and the animation is gorgeous, I especially like it because I can see how they would animate a Scythe user. They used a track by Kana Nishino (song is called Style) as the second closing theme, and now I like her She has a very cute voice much like YUI, but she is still working on her vocals.

Been trying to learn some Japanese via Pimsleaur's Audio books. Quite interesting, and some air of familiarity with all the anime/music I have listened to over time. There are 90 lessons (divided into 3 volumes of 30) all up, each being 30 minutes per lesson. I try and listen to one every night before I go to bed instead of my routine of watching David Letterman.

On a side note I'm rooting for Barack Obama to win the election, I supppose it doesn't really affect me but I still want him to win... I think it'll be good, but I suppose things won't be as funny and amusing with Bush soon to be gone...

Well that's a rushed but hefty enough update for now. Maybe another year before I write again huh?

Stay healthy everyone.