Saturday, September 20, 2008

"No Boundaries"

Whoo hoo! After working very sporadically for the last month or so in my free time, I've finally finished what I consider to be my best digital painting ever! It's an image that I've had in my head for a pretty long time now, and at certain points it was so vivid that I would have done myself a great disservice to keep it locked in my imagination. It's sort of an expository piece on how music influences my creativity, and I would even go so far to say that it's a little bit of a self-portrait. Random trivia: the headphones are modeled after my real life Sony's...they're pretty great. =)

So here it is...Click the image for the large version:



Here's another letterboxed version...the way I had originally envisioned it:

Ultimately I'm very proud of what I've accomplished here, although there are a whole bunch of things I dislike and feel I could have done better. I think this was my first really legit piece of concept art...it was a great learning experience, and I'm really looking forward to doing it again. I hope you like the picture; it's very wallpaper friendly, so feel free to use it as your desktop background. =)

Thanks a bunch for looking. I've got a great idea for my next picture and am going to start working on it soon. It's going to be sweet! In the meantime, leave some comments and critique!

Coop

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Massive Photo Update!

Man, I have been seriously slacking with my blog posts! I think that instead of writing an essay on all the things that have happened over the last couple months, I'll just do a quick photo update. Here's a brief glimpse into some recent happenings of my life through the lens of my camera. Enjoy! =)

I'll kick off the photos with my work life. These are the guys that fund Graspr! They're one of the largest venture capitalist firms in the country. At the end of July, I had the privilege of attending a board meeting at their corporate headquarters.

This was the room where the board meeting took place. I swear, it looked like something out of a movie. So cool.

Aaaand when we're not going to board meetings, we're playing with Nerf guns in the office. Haha.

As you can see, I've taken the liberty of updating my bobblehead collection. Darth Vader has taken a worthy place on my desk next to Dwight Schrute. From what I can tell, they get along pretty well.

This is the kind of car that venture capitalists drive. It's kind of awesome.

This is what my table looks like now. I think I almost have the whole surface occupied with some kind of design or art-related thing.

One of the great things about where I live is that the beach is just a little less than an hour away...and in the spirit of summer, I took another day to go to Santa Cruz and draw. Drawing on the beach is great.

There's this awesome place close to where I live called "Sky High"...it's basically a warehouse that's been converted into a mighty trampoline arena. You would be amazed at the workout your legs get from constantly jumping on these things. Oh, and I must admit...dodgeball on trampolines is really fun.

Hey, I know that guy! Cullen came out to visit about a month ago. He and his friend Thomas stayed a my place for about a week. We had some good times.

We went down to Carmel for a weekend. That's the Carmel beach behind them.

Frisbee on the beach...doesn't get much better my friends.

I think this is probably one of my favorite places in the whole world.

Whilst Cullen and Thomas were gallivanting around San Francisco one day, my front left tire's hubcap popped off. Rumor has it that a homeless guy might have stolen the hubcap before they could retrieve it. Unfortunately, they never did find it. I should probably replace it sometime soon. Ha.

After Carmel, we drove down a little of Route 1. It was...phenomenal. Absolutely spectacular scenery. Took my breath away.

Another shot of route 1's gorgeous coastline.

This was quite possibly one of the most amazing sunsets I've ever seen. At the risk of sounding extremely corny, it almost felt like I was staring into heaven. The camera doesn't even do it justice.

Same sunset as the previous picture, but taken at a small beach just south of Carmel. California sunsets are just so unreal.

Believe it or not, there are actually conservatives in this state. McCain/Palin '08 baby. =)

This is a hike that Cullen, Thomas, and I did. It's in the hills behind the Stanford campus...you can almost see the entire Bay Area from here.

Golden, rolling hills. It's beautiful.

As luck would have it, the Braves were playing in San Francisco while Cullen was visiting! Unfortunately, they lost. It's always a treat to visit the stadium though. =)

Alright, I admit it...I went to Toys 'R' Us to buy legos. I'm getting back into Legos ok? Legos are one of the best toys ever conceived in my opinion. I would even go so far to say that if I hadn't been raised on Legos, I wouldn't be in California doing what I'm doing right now. Thanks Mom and Dad. Haha.

This car set was awesome. From what I could tell, it was sort of like what you would get if you mixed a Ferrari with a Delorean. =)

I recently went on a retreat to the mountains with a church group in the area. These are some of my friends from the trip. Really great Christian guys. We'll be hanging out more for sure. =)

Saved the best for last. My official California license plate. Now I'm really not in Kansas anymore. =)

That's it for now! Hope you guys enjoyed the pics. I'll try to post more frequently now that I'm a bit more settled with everything. I've got an art update coming soon, so stay tuned! Peace dudes.