I just wrapped up my morning lecture early. The students had their first project hand-in of the semester and destroyed themselves last night to get the work done on time. I had a big talk with them just before Christmas about time management, organization and avoiding all-nighters at all costs so they could stay healthy and aware. As far as I could tell, they understood and entered this new term intent on staying on top of the workload.

Apparently those intentions lasted all of two weeks. Ten minutes after my lecture wrapped up I counted eight of them passed out at their desks while the rest shambled around the work area like corpses.

Classes get a group dynamic. The strongest personalities in the class seem to dictate the “class mentality” and students on the sidelines join the hive mind. This morning group is all about extremes – massive enthusiasm or complete burn-out.

Lecturing to a class of zombies is like doing stand-up comedy for an empty room. It sucks the energy out of me. If a group is neutral I can bring them up a few notches and get them jazzed but if they’re way below zero it’s almost impossible to warm things up. The whole lecture becomes adequate but lifeless and the same with the drawing demo. I know they’ll need me to cover most of the material later on one-on-one because they didn’t retain any of it.

I was a hooligan back at Sheridan. I definitely pulled some all-nighters. Being on the other side gives me a completely different perspective on it. Some of these life lessons are going to take time to percolate down into their heads, if ever.

Crap. I sound like an adult.

Thanks for the facial hair feedback from every one. Wow! That’s the most LJ comments I’ve gotten since I announced I was publishing a book, for cryin’ out loud. The Van Dyck brought out the people.

This week I’ve been busting my ass to get a whole pile of things done – old projects hanging over my head, college responsibilities and making sure upcoming projects are organized. I think it’s working. Even though the studio is as busy as ever, I actually feel like things are under control. I can choose to do artwork for a project instead of being forced to because we’re overwhelmed with things that need to get done.

Over the holidays Erik and I discussed ways to market the company even more. I suggested creating an Udon Studio DeviantArt page as a cheap and useful way to showcase work most people wouldn’t know was done by us. I’m happy to say that it’s been unbelievably successful, even just in the short time we’ve had it up. In just over 2 weeks we’ve had over 50,000 unique pageviews (over 200,000 views as a whole) and over 2000 people subscribed to watch our site and be notified every time it updates. It’s been a fantastic way to promote our lesser known artists and show people the wide variety of artwork we create for our clients. Nifty keen!

All in all, things are going pretty well.

Okay, just over two weeks in to the new year. My shaving laziness and general busy-ness has formed the ol’ Van Dyck that I used to have while I was in college. So, the burning soul-shearing question for you all today is:

Should I shave it off or let it flourish?

Will this facial hair survive? It’s up to YOU.

(Click here to see a summer photo without the facial hair for comparison… or scroll back through my LJ archives.)

This is probably the most typical livejournal-type thing I’ve ever posted… I don’t do any of those ‘You are a (insert whatever)’ or polls or stuff like that, so indulge me this one ridiculous post.

I’m not sure what I think of it and I need your positive or negative reinforcement for the time being until I make up my own mind.

Groggy but good overall. Woke up at noon, went back to bed and woke up again at around 1:30pm. Last night was a Birthday Blitz for both Scott Robbins and Eric Kim as we partied, karaoked and generally made asses of ourselves. Even though we were missing a few of our “classic” Karaoke Crew, it was still good times.

January through to the end of March is normally a dead zone for work at Udon. That’s the end of the fiscal year and most companies have blown their yearly budget by Christmas time, so the start of a new year is when they plan and we wait for new things to happen. That is definitely NOT the case this year. As soon as we started up after the new year we were slammed with projects in a way I’ve never seen here before. Larger, more extensive projects with bigger companies. It’s a lot of pressure but very cool as well.

Unrelated thought:

I remember reading an article talking about how much what we see factors into how we treat people. For example – studies have shown that people ascribe traits completely unrelated to appearance to taller and more attractive people. Until we’re given evidence to prove otherwise we assume a tall/attractive person is smarter, more discerning and more capable than someone shorter/less attractive. We may know on a conscious level that beauty doesn’t necessarily equate to brains but tend to react that way subconsciously until we’re given a reason not to with each individual.

When it comes to artists I’ve noticed a similar trend in myself and other people. In this day and age we don’t usually interact with artists face-to-face, so the only “appearance” we have to judge is their artwork. Subconsciously I’ve assumed (until being shown otherwise) that an amazing artist is a higher caliber of person – that they’re responsible, smart, friendly… traits that have NOTHING at all to do with their art (and vice versa for a poor quality artist). The quality of their artwork gives them an advantage in non-art related areas of business and interaction. Even after I’ve been shown proof of their social, scheduling or budgeting INCOMPETENCE I subconsciously struggle with it, assuming that they’ve made a rare mistake instead of realizing that maybe they’re actually terrible in that area.

In other words, good art doesn’t instantly mean they’re a good person. Don’t judge a book by its cover and all that stuff.

I’ve thought about this before but a few jarring examples of it lately re-brought the idea to the surface so I thought I’d jot it down here to solidify it for myself.

A video of the speech that I gave at the Makeshift book launch party was filmed and uploaded to YouTube by a wonderful guy named Trevor Grace. Here it is for everyone to see:

Makeshift Book Launch Speech – Part 1 (5:10)


“Have you seen the news this morning? The world’s gone, it’s all bonkers and we’re all gonna die!”

Makeshift Book Launch Speech – Part 2 (8:30)


“The fact that you guys are here and the fact that I’ve got foreign pre-orders I’m sending out to Australia, Belgium and France… it astonishes me, amazes me and embarrasses the heck out of me, quite frankly.”

Had a great day. Mom and Dad came to visit this afternoon and the whole thing played out like a Nintendo commercial. Last time my Dad became completely hooked on the Wii when they were here just before Christmas. This time, he and I finally convinced my Mom to give it a try.

The scene in my living room today.

I’m not even making this up. She LOVED it. We played Wii Sports almost all afternoon and they would have stayed over night if I didn’t have to work early tomorrow morning. Mom got so into Bowling, I couldn’t believe it. By her 4th frame she totally got the interface and started kicking butt. Within a game she was beating my Dad consistently and by the time they left she’d beaten me a couple times as well.

Mom and her Mii avatar.

Dad and his Mii avatar.

I actually think they want to buy the system when more become available in stores. I’m so very amused by this. Nintendo’s goal of involving non-gamers into video games is so very real to me now. I’ve read articles and watched videos of it but seeing it happen first hand was awesome.

You have to understand how big a deal this is. Mom and Dad don’t understand e-mail or websites, never use the internet and the last computer they bought was a Commodore 64. Dad likes Tetris and Bookworm (though I have to set it up for him). On the other hand, Mom has never even given a wayward glance to a video game. Watching her doing a little dance every time she got a Strike in bowling was pretty amazing. When she got a Turkey (3 Strikes in a row) and then another two Strikes later in the same game, Dad and I realized she was a serious threat:

Mom kicks our butt. Slight irony = Sony television.

My parents finally understand the joy of video games. Thanks Nintendo!

It’s been a frustrating day. Work hassles (people not communicating, people not organized, people not doing what they said they were going to do), sleep schedule kind of out of whack and now I have a piercing headache.

This is not my planned start to a new year. I’m feeling irritable.

Only two good things today:

– I’m ahead on the work stuff I have some semblance of control over.
– Talking to my Mom tonight. They wanted to see me on Sunday, which usually entails me driving in to Oshawa. When my Mom told me they’d be happy to come to my place instead I was pretty shocked. Then she says

“I think your father wants to play more Nintendo.”

Awesome. My Dad the nerd-in-training.

It’s been interesting getting feedback from all of you about the pic I posted up the other day. Some LJ posts, some e-mails… lots of opinions.

Several mentioned that the character/face doesn’t feel like a typical/comfortable/proper Jim pic, which I find weirdly neat because there is no Jim look. I don’t have a style at this point.

The only ‘body’ of work I’ve done my own way is Makeshift Miracle and that’s 3-4 years old – it’s not even how I draw any more. I’ve worked on so much client work that I don’t feel like I have a look of my own at this stage. The Animation course taught me how to adapt my artwork to fit a production style. That adaptability has been a boon to me work wise but now it’s left me without a strong sense of what I want my personal art to be.

I seem to toggle between a whole bunch of influences. Ever since Makeshift ended I’ve been searching for an approach that I can build on to take my personal work to the next level. In the end I’m the only one who can judge what that’s going to be but it is neat hearing what all of you think.

Here are some older test pics I’ve done as I stumble around trying to find things I like:

A mish-mash of manga/animated/illustrative stuff. All of them are pretty different from each other, all of them competently done. Instead of polling people to see what they think I should just choose something and run with it but creative hesitation has crept in and I’m a bit stuck. There’s no right answer. My flexibility/inability to stick with one look is making this harder than it should be.

I need to tell a new story in 2007, that’s the core of this… the rest is annoyingly mutable.

I’ve been using the holiday break to draw for myself, trying to solidify ideas for stories and experiment with some styles and designs to see if I can find something that clicks for me.

So… what do you guys and gals think of this experiment I put together tonight?

It’s a tight pencil sketch with rough blue lines removed and texture/tones added in Photoshop.

I need an approach that looks good but won’t be brutally labor intensive since I’d have to try and balance doing pages for a story with my teaching, coordinating and tons of Udon responsibilities in the new year.

This look is way more manga-inspired than what you’ve seen from me before, which I think is a good thing. I don’t want to be typecast as far as what I’m capable of. I want to simplify without losing a sense of good drawing underneath. Working with just a couple tones for highlights and shadows might force me to stage better and think more carefully about mood. When I wake up maybe I won’t like this piece at all but right now it’s working for me.

Your thoughts are appreciated.