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.

This week was a but different than the last two weeks because I did not do any drawing. I went back to focusing on the written aspect of my project. I'm almost done with my written narrative, in fact, it will be completed this tuesday. I have decided that instead of a comic I'm just going to Illustrate my text. I have seen it done really successfully in a recent issue of batman. In this batman comic there were not panels with pictures and speech bubbles, but blocks of text with images that went along with it. This style worked pretty good with the batman comic, the only difference is that the batman images were rendered in 3D, while mine will only be 2D. I will post a picture for you to see what im taking about. I'm a little concerned tho that since my story is a bit long, that nobody will want to read it and give me feedback :(. I will need to know what parts are working and what parts are not, what i should probably add or take out, just critique on story elements and writing style. I do intend to take it to the sweetland writing center but I would also like to get feedback from my faculty and classmates. I outlined my story into an outline of its important parts, I was advised by Hanna to do so, so that I would keep myself on track while I was writing and not forget what where the important parts. So I would not spent to much time working on parts of the story that were not as important, while the main pieces were not complete. This outline splits the story up into sections. I guess if I want anyone to even think about reading the story I will just give them the outline, then give them the story one piece at a time, because i know everyone had their own stuff to to, and not much time to sit around reading my long ass narrative.

What I need to do: Finish the writing by tuesday, and have the rest of the character designs/descriptions done by the following tuesday. Then its DRAW DRAW DRAW!!!!!!

I'll post a copy of my outline for anyone who would like to read.

Sanguine moon

Main Points Outline

1. The story starts off in the middle. George Is Allen’s Assistant and close personal friend. Since Allen has become a monster, he has begun to kill off members of a gang in order to take revenge for the death of his friend Pikarra, and as a half ass means of justifying his choice to become a monster to satisfy his own selfish needs. Members of this gang abduct George on his way home from work because the gang has noticed that the police for some odd reason have taken a sudden interest in George (Allen and his company to be exact) and believe that George must be in the know about something. George of course knows nothing about what is going on. After taking George and questioning him Allen suddenly Appears and kills allot of the gang members. George recognizes his boss and close friend and the two of them are both quite surprised to see each other. Allen then begins to tell George why he is there and how he came to be what he is, and this is where the story starts, at its true beginning.

2. The story starts with Allen and his best friend Christopher sitting in class. Christopher and Allen have been friends since they were small children. Allen is a very morose and cynical person, his character is set up as having a very depressing outlook on life and very negative views and opinions when it comes to women. He refuses to own up to his role in things, blaming his situations in life on outside causes. Allen is then attacked by a stranger who turns out to be some sort of monster, and after the stranger gets to know Allen’s personality better through the tasting of his blood he finds Allen to be most amusing, and decides to give him a choice, he can die now, or become one of them, but before Allen is made to decide, the monster says hill give him a taste of his power and then let him decide.

3. After being bitten into by his demonic oppressor Allen is taken to a dark and seedy nightclub where he is forced to fight against a group of strangers, it is here that Allen begins to understand the abilities that he would gain should he chose to become a monster. He finds that he would have the ability to control people through a kind of possession as he uses this ability to kill the group of me he is pitted against. As Allen is killing these men, he is not in control of his body, he is there, in his mind, but his body is acting of its own accord, forcing him to bear witness as it commits these horrible acts. After slaughtering the men Allen wakes up home in his bed, where he wonders if it had all been a dream.

4. Allen gets up and goes to class as normal wondering if he dreamt up what had just happened. Throughout this part of the story Allen notices that no matter what or how much he eats, he is always still hungry. In this part of the story you learn that Allen was betrayed by a woman he once loved, and that is part of the reason he is as depressed and cynical as he is. He is lonely and believes that nobody really cares for and understands him, which would explain his outlook on women. Allen ends up being forced to be social and go out to a bar by Christopher and this is where he meets Pikarra (very important character) Pikarra is very beautiful and free spirited. She has an openness and quirkiness about her that makes it easy for Allen to open up and speak to her. Through their conversations Allen begins to feel like Pikarra is the only person in the world that truly understands him, that he can connect with and relate to on a deeper and more intimate level (by intimate I don’t mean sexually).

5. The next night as Allen and Pikrra are eating dinner at a diner, two gang members come in the place and start shooting, Allen ends up shot and Pikarra tries her hardest to save him and ends up shot in the process. Pikarra dies, but Allen does not, as he finds out that the events of the other night were not a dream. He kills Pikarras murderers, and uses her death as a means of excusing or justifying the choice of becoming a monster.

End