amedyr

Ok, so I didn't come even close in the Stan Lee contest and I don't know how much of that was due to my lack of eager fans contacts willing to vote for me and how much was due to my suckiness. Oh yeah, it probably had something to do with the fact that I didn't want to fish for votes by voting on every single contestant and then asking for a vote in return, because every time I voted, a notice would come up on my Facebook profile. It just didn't seem right to flood all my friends' feeds.

I learned my lesson, though. From now on, I'll only take part in contests that are not decided by user voting. (technically, I learned that lesson a long time ago; you'd think it would have stuck after all those times that I lost to a stupid entry made by someone with a gajillion friends. Stupid idealism that makes me think I'll win by the sheer awesomeness of my work. Pfft.)

Speaking of awesome: DRAGON AGE 2 IS OUT!! I bought it on Steam and it's still downloading.. My crappy connection is killing me! The game should be here by tomorrow, though. Too bad Wednesday is one of the busiest days in the week for me...  >_<

So both sleep-deprivers are done (see last post). I'm not going to win with either entry, but it's important to participate, right?

Things are progressing at a steady pace. I've managed to meet with a guy who owns a game studio here in my town... and it turns out he's an old RPG buddy! How cool is that? I hope I get picked to work with them, they're doing a stellar job!

In other news: I was convinced to look for an art school in the US. I was mainly looking for schools in Canada, because of the whole immigration thing, but a friend of mine convinced me that the US are not that closed off if a company wants you, specifically, to work for them. So I started looking for undergraduate courses near Burbank (Pixar!) and there was one that this Brazilian dude who works at Pixar mentioned. I went through the application process, just to see what sort of documents I'd need, and they asked for half the first tuition upfront, besides the application fee, and they're both non-refundable!  I'm sorry, but I don't have 550 dollars lying around.

On the other hand, the Art Institute of California has called me 3 times - I wonder if they'll be so eager to have me once I tell them I'm a starving artist who can't afford tuition and needs a full scholarship.

I can't catch a break with those deadlines, man. I always find out about art contests when there's like a week left or 2 days left.... It's always just enough time for me to think "yeah, I can do it!" and then spend the following days working like crazy, missing sleep, skipping appointments...

The latest two sleep-killers have been the Stan Lee super-hero creation contest (btw, if you could vote for me, it'd be super) and the Barba Negra comics contest for Rio Comicon.

The Stan Lee thing is done, obviously, since voting is now open, and I've sent in my submission with 1 minute and 30 seconds left. Yeah. It felt like one of those shows where the good guy stops the bomb with 1 second marked on the time display. The comics contest is due in 5 days, during which I still have to finish 15 more script pages, 1 story abstract and 4 drawn and colored pages.

Full speed ahead!

Screw you, summer.

Ahh LJ, thank you so very much for deleting the message I've been typing for the past 10 minutes. BTW, your autosave is SHIT.

Basically I wrote that I never got round to doing those comics for my portfolio and that I focused on a watercolor piece instead, cause I wanted to have another traditional pic to balance out all the digital stuff.

Also, my dog caught tick fever and got very thin, so much so that I could feel her vertebrae, and the vet took here away for intensive care and she's doing better now. Might come back home today.

And Ive been spending a lot lately, and on serious stuff too, and now that my credit card is maxed out I saw this purse and I want it sooo bad! http://www.modekungen.se/se/vaska-skull-13210
Yes, the website is in Swedish. Yes, it'd be the most money I'd ever spent on a purse. But it's got tiny little skulls on it! It's so me! I'm normally a stingy person, but when I see something I like, I don't mind dishing out the dough.... I just hope it's still on stock by the end of the month... :(


PS: my paycheck is late, this month... AGAIN. And the documents I sent on January 14th, which were supposed to reach their destination in up to 11 working days, have been stuck in the same place since the 19th. So F- you, ECT!

So I was surfing the web and found this interesting activity:

Jason Turner's Page 100 Project

I picked my favorite book, The Trolltooth Wars, by Steve Jackson (don't judge me), opened it to page 100... and it's this huge scene with characters I can't even remember (I haven't read the book in a very long time), a huge fly monster being eaten by other monsters, green blood oozing everywhere, people running through a crowd and no sign of Darkmane (the ruggedly handsome Major Character)...

I'm not running away from the challenge, but I'm seriously considering the possibility of adding a comic page to the portfolio I have to send until February 1st and this might be it, because I'm too chicken cautious CHICKEN to start my 'vamps in space' webcomic project.

The other books I'm considering are either from the Temeraire series - which means dragon action, and I'm not too sure about my dragon-drawing skills - or this French fantasy book I'm reading, but I haven't reached page 100 yet, so I could very well miss some important visual element.

I wonder if I have the guts to do a Fighting Fantasy book for this project? And if I do, should I stick to page 100 or would it make more sense to pick number 100? (you know, the FF books, you choose what your character does and then flip the book to the number indicated in your choice)

So yesterday I had this exam in college. Theory of process. Class is bo-ring. Tough midterm (I did study, but got the worst grade since I started law school). So this time I study extra hard, even though The Exam is coming and I'm having tons of extra classes.

Yesterday, my front gate went haywire (the rain probably got into the electric engine), so I decided to leave the car home and take a cab. I left extra early, thinking traffic might be difficult, because of the rain. Talk about difficult!! The river that flows along main street freaking FLOODED, so the driver heads another direction, taking a longer route that would avoid the main street. Another flood. So there we were, completely stuck in traffic, people are leaving buses and going back home on foot, and I'm expecting a huge tidal wave to wash over everything, much like that scene in front of the New York library in Day After Tomorrow. A bit of wishful thinking on my part.

I call student services and say that I'm going to miss the exam and it's not my fault, so it's not fair that they make me do the same exam they give to people who skip the set date (which is tougher, because they ask for the whole term's content). The guy blurts out something about the extra exam being a student's right and hangs up on me, before I can protest.

At this point, my cellphone battery dies. But the flood was over, about half an hour after the exam started. I decided to go to college anyway, just to show that I did everything I could to get there on time. I open the classroom door, expecting to find 2 or 3 colleagues in there (there was a FLOOD, for goodness' sake!), and EVERYBODY was there, taking the exam! The professor looks at her watch, as if to say "yes, I noticed you are late, you lazy girl". I go over and explain about the flood and that it wasn't my fault that I was late, and that I should be able to do the exam another time and she says "nonsense, you are just half an hour late, you can still do it - the other exam will be harder than this one!"

So there I was, completely taken off guard, trying to decide what to do, and this colleague says "don't worry, you can do it, the exam is easy!" so I agree and pick up the exam sheet. I've just touched the piece of paper when I remember that the cab is waiting for me outside, in case I decided to go home, so I tell the professor I have to go out there and let the driver go. She goes "What, you're leaving the room after I headed you the exam sheet??" basically calling me a cheater. I tell her I never even looked at the questions and was about to say 'screw it, I'll take the extra exam', when she says, like she's run out of patience "fine, just go"

After letting the cab go and rushing back to class, I pick up the exam, sit right in front of the professor (she was watching where I was going to seat, expecting me to pick the best place to cheat, no doubt). At this point I'm not only nervous because of the time, I'm also feeling pretty crappy because of the whole unfairness of the situation. The professor thinks I'm a lazy bum and a cheater, everyone else has more time to do the exam than me, I left my watch home, so I have no means to keep track of time and I needed a flawless grade, in order to keep my overall average from shooting down.

Of course the exam was a bust. A flop. A complete failure. My last two answers are ridiculous, I left one item in another question blank, because I couldn't find the article in the law, and if I don't fail this class, I'll just barely go through with a crappy grade.

First thing Monday I'm heading back there and darn it, I'll get myself some justice.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot!
Last wednesday was my birthday and it was loads of fun. We ate at Outback (oh I'm such a dweeb) and I had a great time with Luana and Carla.

Once again, my Italian blood makes itself noticed by equaling food and fun.

Wow, I've been neglecting this place! So as I was sitting here, trying to think of something to write, I notice there's an empty plastic bottle on the street and the cars keep going over it, making a noise that is mostly drowned by all the other noises around it (cars, buses and trucks going by, people talking downstairs, etc). And sure enough, here comes my dog (which is female, but I only call her a bitch either when she makes me mad or in the plural, when I'm talking about both my female dogs), panting and drooling and staring at me.

Yes, my dog thinks that the noise of plastic bottles being run over by cars is one of the signs of the Apocalypse. She throws a fit every time she hears that cracking sound. Maybe she used to be friends with a plastic bottle? Maybe she thinks plastic bottles have feelings? Maybe plastic bottles crack at the same sound frequency as the bugles of dog doom? I will never know.