Well pretty soon I am going to stop selling prints on DA as they take too much of the profit and charge too to the customers so I will be printing, shipping and selling my own prints. I plan on keeping the prices for my prints to be affordable but at the same time give me a good profit so that I live.

So this coming Winter I will be finally putting together an actual website that will have contact info, a blog, a gallery and a on-line shop. The shop will be done through pay-pal. Also the prints will all be high quality prints on good paper and with good ink plus I will be able to control how they come out so that they match my master copies.

The price will be determined by how much a particular print costs to print with a mark up for profit based on that and lastly the cost of taxes and shipping. My goal is to send high quality but at a reasonable price.

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Imagination is not a total internal power but rather it is a reflection and multi-faceted projection of our experiences and knowledge. We take in information from the world around us and intuitively re-order it into something new. Something is not created from nothing but simply transformed from what was before.

Well these last two days have been really eventful and have altered my plans for the future.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to see a live presentation by James Gurney, who is the creator of Dinotopia, and it was awesome learning some of the process he does for his artwork. In addition to getting to be at his presentation I also got to speak with him as well as speak with his old professor from the Art Center. They both took a look at my work and were both impressed. We even ended up all having lunch together and had a lot of fun talking about art stuff as we passed a around a drawing game were we had to continue a doodle where the other left off and then pass it on to the other people there. I learned a whole lot about world building as an illustrator and I am even considering doing a book similar to Dinotopia but Lovecraft theme instead of a graphic novel.

Today along with my club we went to the Dreamworks studio for a tour of it’s campus. The tour was really awesome, I learned a lot, got great food, and saw sneak peaks of upcoming Dreamworks movies. Some of the movies to come are Shrek 4, Kung-fu Panda 2, How to Train a Dragon (which I got to see a sneak peak of) and a super hero movie called Ubermind. I can’t tell you much about the films with the NDA and all that but I will tell you that they are all going to be great movies. I also learned about pre-production, production and what I should have in my portfolio. What I learned was that they want to see a visual development portfolio that shows a start to finished project in the creation of a small world.

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Imagination is not a total internal power but rather it is a reflection and multi-faceted projection of our experiences and knowledge. We take in information from the world around us and intuitively re-order it into something new. Something is not created from nothing but simply transformed from what was before.

OK as a lot of you know I have started attending Cal State Fullerton and man things have been really keeping me busy. I have been really working hard on my projects and they take up most of my time. In less than two years I will be getting close to getting a job as my skills are really starting to come together but now I have to focus even more if I want to get the job that I want. With this in mind my personal studies will be more focused on character and environmental design but don't worry because I will still do some compositional illustrations from school and my own personal projects.

Personal projects:

Man's Folly ( indoors environment Lovecraft comp )
The office of Dr. Herbert Philips (HP Lovecraft as the adminstrator of Arkham Asylum)
Tea my dear? (A dark steam punk Alice in Wonderland )

Current School Project:
The Real Cause ( a Great disasters project that is getting near done )
Here is the progress of the work if you want a sneak peak. [link]

However these projects will be coming in slow not only because I want to take my time on them but also because of all my school projects as well as other prep stuff for the job market.

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Imagination is not a total internal power but rather it is a reflection and multi-faceted projection of our experiences and knowledge. We take in information from the world around us and intuitively re-order it into something new. Something is not created from nothing but simply transformed from what was before.

Well in combination between my Business practices in the visual arts class and my upper division illustration class I have learned about how much time I actually spend on a composition or at least learning how much time. From the business class I was told to start keeping a log of the time I spend working on a project that records what I do during my process and how much time I spend working on it. This is suppose to help you decide how much a project is worth and what to price commissions in the future. I have also been learning that the more prep time you put in before starting the actually composition the better it will be.

Here is an example of my activity so far on my current project; which you can also see the progress here at this [link]

Project Assigned + Q&A session with client (my teacher): 30 min------You include this because you are on the job
Research and reference search: 2 hrs and 30 min
Thumbnail sketches(30 thumbs) + character Sketches: 5 hours
First rough sketch "Hindenburg" : 2 hours 30 min
Second rough sketch "Stock Market Crash of 1929": 1 hour 45 min
Third rough sketch "Chernobyl": 1 hour 40 min
Created Poser Reference: 1 hours 46 min
Final Drawing 3 hours 28 min
Underpainting process: 5 hours

Now if I was only paid 10 dollars an hour my piece (the original) is already worth $238 but I know that there will be at least another 10 hours worth of work put into this so it would be worth around $338 and that is the bargain price. Now prints of course would be a fraction of the original's full worth because it is a reproduction but a commission is a different story.

Now of course with this project we had to come up with 3 different rough sketches for our comps and so that did mean a lot more research and so on however I was surprised to see how much time I actually spend including prep time. I have also found out this amount of time is often quite common with the best artists out there, although you do get faster over time and more efficient. Now with a really client you also have to check back with them have things signed off for the OK to go forward and all that. I guess it is like that old saying. If it is worth doing then it is worth doing it right.
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Update
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It is my Birthday and I am now 33 years old but because of my mileage I feel about 43.

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Imagination is not a total internal power but rather it is a reflection and multi-faceted projection of our experiences and knowledge. We take in information from the world around us and intuitively re-order it into something new. Something is not created from nothing but simply transformed from what was before.

Well it looks like "A series of possessed things" so far is the winner of my next project. It should prove interesting and I already have a feel ideas working in that mysterious dimension that you all call my mind. Although I might sneak in a Fan art work in here or there into the project just for kicks if I start running dry. After that because Elementals and nymphs came real close to winning as well I will do a few of them as well afterward.


Well to make a strong story short my house has long been invaded by those terrible Argentinean Ants. These ants are not your normal because they not only have multiple queens but also cooperate with other nests and become super nests. They are also super small and swarm like mad and get through the tiniest of cracks. Now, I try to keep things clean, although my family don't seem to care much for doing the same, so there is always something attracting them. They even go after my tea on my desk within a short amount of time and that really bugs me. Now I don't want to use harmful chemicals as ants just adapt to that stuff anyways plus not to mention I have a cat and a little niece. So I looked up some alternative methods.


The first method I am trying out in my room is with peppermint oil; it seems that the little buggers can't stand the smell or taste of peppermint, which I find odd because I happen to love the smell and taste of the stuff. So I have wiped down my desk and applied a border around the edges of my desk. I will say this though even though I love the smell of peppermint the oil that I bought is some potent stuff. I had barely used any of the oil and only on one level of my desk and my whole room smells like chewing gum.

The next thing I will use if this doesn't work is corn meal which supposedly causes them to explode when they eat it cause it sucks out moister and expands in their bodies. BOOM!!!

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Imagination is not a total internal power but rather it is a reflection and multi-faceted projection of our experiences and knowledge. We take in information from the world around us and intuitively re-order it into something new. Something is not created from nothing but simply transformed from what was before.