More chiu-streaming! Its so much fun to take a break from painting an paint with bobby! And seriously inspiring! The challenge this time was 1 hour self portrait.

Chiuism!

I've been tuning into Bobby Chiu's streams, and find them very inspiring. It just makes you wanna paint! Here's the challenge for today, 1 hour cowboy. Topic by guest speaker Stephen Silver. Thanks guys!

Chiu & co:

http://imaginismstudios.blogspot.com/
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bobby-chiu-broadcasting

ZhangLu/Manley Download!

I Just finished a piece inspired by the zhanglu/manley download. Zhanglu paints, manley narrates. I learned a lot of things i already knew. It sounds weird, but its true, a lot of the info conveyed was already there in my brain, but a refresher helped things click. Plus the girls are super hot! Get the download here: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=158646

My work still pales next to ZhangLu's, but i feel i've made improvements! about 3 hours worth of doodling, no reference:

LEBANON!

Ok, so i've been in lebanon since the beginning of february, and i haven't shown anyone a single picture, which is a bit rude to the ones back home. So, i'll talk a little about my stay here, and show you some pictures. I live in a beautiful, although a bit run down apartment in achrafieh, beirut. It has a very.. um.. bohemian charm. I share the apartment with bebeh and another couple, Miles and Carla, an american contrabassist and and a lebanese actress. . There's always a cast of interesting characters around, our house is very nice for having people over.

I visited Jbeil during the first days of my stay. Jbeil is old, and have the mediterranean handy for scenic pictures. (this was during lebanese "Winter" by the way.. har har har.. It's "spring" now, and its getting quite summery if you ask me.. :P)

The cast of characters surrounding us in this play is quite remarkable. All of them have treated me like a friend from the first day. Cheers guys! That is something i've noticed a lot in this country, people are generally very friendly. And the food is SOO goooood! I've put on around 6 kilos since i got here. (well, i did, then lost 3 again..) Seriously, the food rocks! omnomnom. A note to San, watch out for all the pine nuts.. They are all over the food here.. 

I also poisoned myself. (twice) by adding blue food coloring to stuff. Apparently i'm not very tolerant to that kind of stuff, so i was knocked out for a couple of days, the first time from blue pancakes, the second time for eating this rice:

(Apparently i'm none too bright either, considering i did it twice..)

So yeah. Food. And then there's the place we live. Achrafieh (im sure i fudged up the spelling..) Is a really nice neighborhood. Safe too, or so i've been told. This is what part of the view is like from our 5th floor balcony: 

I also got my hair done. Thats Omar to the right by the way. 

By random chance i had the opportunity to act in a commercial for romanian yoghurt. It was a lot of fun, we got to spend a day at the beach, with brilliant sun and free food. :P Plus, i got to stomp around in armor. Very historically incorrect viking armor to be precise. 

My schtroumpf! 
Frolicking around on the beach looking for shells while the crew sweat their asses off...

That's my girl! Not a cloud in the sky, an empty beach, and sun hitting us hard, but she's still playing her DS. <3

two warriors of the invasion force. The "um, my costume is falling apart" regiment. 

Beirut is a city FULL of textures. Bulletholes, rust, grime and dirt make up one side of the city, and then there's new, shiny, modern stuff growing out of the old. I'm snapping a bunch of references that will be very useful at some point. 

Okay thats all for now i guess. I got tons of more stuff, but that will have to wait for later. 

Rest in peace Bettie.

I recently participated in the Chow 140: Bettie Page Tribute. She passed away on december 11th 2008. Her memory will live on for a long time.

Regular updates!

yeah.. i do those.. :P

Here's some boobies to keep this blog alive!

'nother doodle.

I just finished another doodle, and I'm getting rather frustrated over my progress. On this sketch i basically blocked out the torso and limbs, double checked the balance of the figure, and proceeded to block in the values. The way i usually do it. No lines to speak of, i need to work more on linework. I'm thinking of switching to pen for a while, gotta work on getting a strong, dynamic line.