This week was pretty productive, I finally got a preliminary layout for my book done, now i just need to focus on the images. The layout is subject to change, but it helped me to narrow down exactly which parts of the story I wanted to Illustrate. For class on tuesday Im going to come in with 2 moch up spreads with Illustrations included, just to test out and see which direction im going to go in, as well as see if my illustration ideas are working well. This ended up being my first post since after christmas because I forgot to post last week, it took a minute for me to back into the swing of the weekly blog posts. I spent class time working in my studio both tuesday and thursday, as far as studio time, i cant spend it in my studio anymore unfortunately because i have a class scheduled during that time slot, which feels a but strange because last semester I was one of the few people who was in my studio during the scheduled time every week. It works out tho because I make up my lost studio hours on the weekends, Im always in my studio fri-sun, ususally from around 1-9 pm. work work work.

December Reviews. I felt like my december review was very successful. In the beginning my biggest fear about my review was that I was going to run out of time. I had so much that I wanted to talk abut during my presentation, and I felt like 20 mins was just not going to cut it. During the practice presentations that we did with out classes, I completely overshot my time. When Sean and Hanna told me I had three minutes left I was less than half way through my presentation, and ended up rushing through the rest of my presentation so fast that I didn't even talk about what my story was actually about :/ that really sucked. The night before my review I wrote myself Up a script (it turned out to be three single spaced pages long :/) and really paced myself with the presentation. On the actual day of the review I finished just in time, and got a chance to talk about everything I wanted to. I felt like my committee was really into my presentation. I got allot of useful feedback, and I felt that my committee members were very interested in my story. I really enjoyed myself on presentation day!

This week was one of the most productive yet, i drew lots of pictures. I spent all of my studio time drawing. I also got to practice giving my december review presentation on thrusday. WHen I put my presentation together I was very proud of it, because I included allot of information, and allot about how far i have come in terms of my projects development. I did not however, practice the talking aspect of my presentation, I underestimated exactly how long it would take me to get through the presentation. I got about halfway through and received a warning telling me that i had 3 minutes left, it was not good. Due to me running out of time i didn't get to present one of the most important parts of the presentation, i didn't get to read a section of the story, or even tell clearly what the story was about. I had planned to insert that part near the end as i was going over my Illustrations, but ran out of time. For my actual review, i have decided to make myself a script, and practice going over it in 20 minutes time.

This week was very productive!!! I spent all of my studio time mond and thursday drawing. I began using my 3D technique. So far ive done about two tests just to see how well the 3D backgrounds would go when my 2D drawings are placed against them. So far so good but I cant be 100% sure how things will look until i have fully painted the drawings. I feel that once the drawings are given shades and tonal values they will blend much much better. I also began doing other Illustrations just to get use to drawing the characters, so that there will be consistency when im drawing. What I need to do now is to keep drawing and painting, the more i draw and paint the better at them i become.

This week was actually pretty dull, not much IP progress unfortunately. I had a 10 page paper for my women's studies class that took up almost all of my time this week. I spend my studio hours on tues editing the parts of sanguine moon that were embarrassing (grammar and spelling stuff, there was even a part where I called monica Jessica for some odd reason, I don't even have a Jessica in the story) Then I spent my studio time thursday drawing, I finished the character sketch of the old man and started on Christopher. I also registered online with the sweetland writing center and am scheduling an appointment after thanksgiving break. What I need to do next is draw draw draw, midterm review is coming up and I dont have allot of visuals t show my board, and its not like I can hand them a 50 page manuscript and make them read it... I've got allot of thinking to do :( I'm going to try and do a scene for my tues meeting with elonas group, which means I'll be working in 3D this weekend, I should be able to get a line drawing done by tues. that combined with the character sketches should provide something for the group to look at while I talk, I will probably read a section aloud as well.

This week proved to be very interesting. I began to receive feedback on my narrative. Not many people have read it but I received feedback from Sean, Stephanie and two other friends of mine that have not yet finished. Of the four people that have either finished reading, or at least begun, they commented on issues that I was concerned about while writing. One of these issues was that there could possibly be to many women represented, to many different relationships being developed/introduced. Stephanie believes this to be true, while sean and I believe otherwise. I see where Stephanie is coming from because as I was writing I was weary of that being the case, but I believe (and sean agreed with me) that all these women are necessary to develop Allen as a character. His interactions with these women tell the reader why he thinks/feels the way he does, and how he came to do so. Whether or not I'm gonna change that part of the story I don't yet know, I feel I need some more opinions on the issue before I decide. Another Issue me and Stephanie discussed was Allen's relationship with Pikarra. Stephanie believes that since I am trying to develop this deep connection between the two of them, as the reader she needs more time with them to make it more believable, and I totally agree. However I don't think that making the chapter longer will be a good thing, I'm a little attached to the chain of events that I have set fourth. I believe that I'm going to solve this problem by having Allen and Pikarra know each other from the past. When Allen meets Pikarra at the bar I'll change it so that he knew her once a long time ago, and I'll add in like a flashback scene where the reader gets to know how they met, and follows them through some sort of adversity or challenge that they overcome together, but then for reasons Allen cannot explain Pikarra had to leave, and he's seeing her again for the first time now at this bar. I think that will help to make their connection more believable.

Sean brought up an interesting point when he said that although Patrice Williams is beautiful, he thinks it would be more effective if Allen's obsession was more famous, someone like Beyonce for example, and he thinks I should just make up my own celebrity instead of using one that already exists. When i read this I was like huh... I thought I did make up my own celebrity, but it turns out that there is a model named Patrice Williams that like, won miss america just this year lol ha ha ha ha ha, thats insane, I had no idea! Looks like I'll have to change her name, I don't want my readers making a connection to this miss america lol.

Another friend of mine made an interesting comment while reading as well, she said that some of the things Allen and Christopher say only a male would think that way, and that some of the things they do are typical guy stuff. This comment, although said jokingly worried me a bit, and I guess Sean was right I need to realize who my audience is. I agree that the way Allen and his friend think are typical guy shit, and I realize that the story is told from a guys perspective, and the interactions between Allen and his retarded friend are meant to show you how stupid and retarded they both are, so I guess my intended audience are adult males. However, I do want m story to be accessible to woman as well. I want women to be able to read my story and think its good as well, even though its told from a mans perspective and geared towards men. I mean, I can read Twilight, a story written by a woman, told from a woman's perspective and geared toward teenage girls and still think its good writing, thats what I want to accomplish with my Sanguine Moon.

Now that finished the writing I have been doing Allot of drawing, I finished the Allen character sketch and begun to draw the Old Man. I must say I am quite proud of the sketch of the Old man, I just love the way he came out!!! There is only one thing tho. The old mans clothes are supposed to be dated, I wrote them as looking very nice and high fashion, but also like they come from another time period. the old man wears a suit, but to me it does not look that old. As I was drawing I google searched old or dated suits and got some pictures, but I don't think it comes across in my drawing. The whole long coat with the chains and the shoes were supposed to look like those 60's or 70's zoot suits black people use to wear back in the day, in all diff crazy kinds of colors like bright red, blue or yellow, with their hair chemically slicked (fried, dyed, and laid to the side like my grandfather says lol) and those huge hats with the feathers lol (like Denzel Washington wore when he played in the movie Malcom X) but I don't think it comes across that well. Maybe he needs the hat?? lol. I know one reason is because those suits were real baggy, but I didn't want the old mans to be that baggy, he still has to look class now lol. I dunno, his clothes just ended up looking like any other suit. I guess I gotta keep working on it, Ill post the images.

This week was very productive!! I finally finished my story!!!!! Anyone who would like to read it just shoot me an e-mail and I will send it to you. I'm vert excited about the finished story, I hope everyone thinks its good, im open and very eager for criticism!! After finishing my story I went back to drawing, this time I'm working on the character sketch for the main character Allen. So far the drawing is coming out pretty well, im just worried about his clothes, whether they are to high fashion. Maybe not, i mean its just a shirt and some jeans, but im worries about whether or not it fits his character. I guess in the end it doesn't really matter much tho, since what hes wearing in the sketch is not necessarily what he's gonna wear in the illustrations, Pikarra for example deff will not be wearing that striped shirt lol, to much of a pain in the ass to draw :P

What I plan to do from here on out is keep drawing and making visual stuff. Im gonna try to finish all of my character sketches so that I know what all the characters look like, then begin the actual illustration process.

I spent all of my studio time proof reading my writing and drawing.