Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Was very good. Harrison Ford can still play a good Dr Jones. Overall I really loved the movie and probably will go see it again. The best part was the mystery, not knowing what was going to happen or what the truth behind the artifacts in the movie, was what made it so great. Also the setting in Peru (I think it was Peru) made it even better, since where it was filmed was so amazing to look at. It had less computer effects that I expected, which was an added bonus for me, I was worried this movie would become another Star Wars Episode 1. Even though I had a good guess at what the plot was, it left enough hidden to keep me from getting bored...

so ... I say go see it now. You will have a great time!

Friday, May 16, 2008

Monday, May 12, 2008

Megaman Stuff

Megaman began my interest in drawing comics. Sometime back in say, 1997 -1999 , can't remember exactly, it's been too long, I began drawing Megaman comics with some bic pens on small sheets of newsprint paper. This wasn't the first time I had drawn comics, but it was the first time in between a HUGE break in not drawing them at all. It also started me on drawing more than ever, sometimes every day. I wish i had some of these old pages scanned, they looked awful, most like scribbles on paper, but they were fun. I drew hundreds of those things, with bad plot lines and crappy characters. Around a year or so later I began reading "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way," which gave me some of the tools i needed to make better comics. The scribbles turned into solid figures with backgrounds. I began to pencil things out and then ink over them with the bic pens. I even tried inking a page or two with india ink and a brush, the pages were still on sheets of newsprint and were still Megaman themed. I did maybe 30-40 pages like this, until i was around 15 or 16 years old. Here I started attending comic book classes at a little place after school called something like "Flemington Art Institute" that probably wasn't the exact name. The teacher was a guy named Dave Spurlock. He taught me to use the right sized paper, the standard 10 by 15 inch bristol boards, and he taught me to ink my work better and more interesting. The pages I did for this class were pretty awful as well, but they were a step up from what i was doing. Sadly, I never did get back to those old stories I had been working on, they fell by the wayside and died. I still have them all in a folder though. I drew 4 pages for that class, the comic was the best thing I had done and I was super proud of it. I took the class 3 more times, once more with Dave and twice more with a guy named George Lavigne. By the last class I was 17 years old and has drawn around 10 pages or so the more professional way. I drew a few megaman pages here and there, but no solid stories. I had to quit the class sadly for Rutgers University. I was 18 when it ended. Rutgers has no comic classes, only drawing ones. I took Drawing fundamentals 1 and 2 and a class called "Drawing 1" all of which were drawing classes mostly based on observation of models and the human figure. It was here I sparked an interest in drawing megaman comics again. I was playing Megaman X4 and Megaman 8, along with X5. I had learned about Ebay recently, and had been buying junk off of it. I bought 2 Megaman X mangas from there. These comics really inspired me, and I started drawing my "Bass, Rebirth of Amp" comic. After struggling through the first ten pages the comic became a lot more fun. I didn't actually start posting the comic online till a year or so later, with Deviantart. I drew this Bass comic throughout my Rutgers career, and one year into my SVA career. I finished it last summer around August. I haven't drawn a Megaman comic in 9 months, going on 10 now. I've been drawing my own stuff a lot, along with HP Lovecraft adaptations. Really though, if it wasn't for Megaman games and manga, I don't think I would be so interested in this stuff. There is a lot more to this story as well, but I don't feel like writing it all out. It's amazing how something that is originally a hobby can become the center of your time and effort. I'm glad though because it makes me happy. I can still go into that world I was into when I was a kid. I'll be working on a short 8 page or so Megaman based comic for my friends Tcat and John. Who are polishing up the script. Usually I don't do stuff like that but I've been wanting to try one of their stories for a while now. I'm hoping it will be the continuation in a long line of comics dating back to when I was 14-15 years old. Hopefully someday I will get the time to work on another long Megaman story, but it will probably be a couple of years before that happens. Hopefully I'll be too busy getting comic and art jobs after I graduate to draw any Megaman. One can only hope.