I spent most of the day yesterday in the back helping to prepare foods for today. I’m slow with a knife, but everyone has been really helpful in showing me tips. They all seem to understand that I’m coming in with no experience in that department and have been very patient with me.

My big story from yesterday was from dicing onions. The first few had me crying, but after a while I couldn’t feel it anymore…although I did feel a bit dizzy! I made sure to take breaks and drink water. ^_^ I felt sorry for the gentleman working next to me though. When Kimi came back to visit me, she said she felt the wave of onion from five feet away. She kept her visit short!

Today I was learning the basics of opening and how to use the registers. I was also making espresso drinks, which was a bit stressful. I really didn’t want to mess up anyone’s drink! They make all their own breads and pastries fresh each day, I hope to get in on that. I’ve always wanted to work in a bakery ^_^

I’m really looking forward to getting back to school. I’m excited by most of my classes, I’ll be taking advanced animation two in which I believe we’ll be focusing on facial animation. I also have an intro to 2d animation class, that should be interesting. I hope to get a lot of drawing practice from it. I’ll have a intermediate figuring drawing class, I hope to make it to more workshops this semester. Finally I’ll be taking a class called gestures and emotions in art. Kind-of an acting class for animators.

I started from a photo of a guy walking down a street and had some fun with it.

Prompt: A glowing dome of information surrounds a person as she mixes and mashes together the glowing and encompassing atmosphere of light.
Author: maiki

This was supposed to be a speed painting, but much procrastination made it otherwise. ^_^

In any case, I did this image as an exercise to give a body to the little circle guys I draw (see the lotro comic post). The other style doesn’t lend itself to having clothing on the characters (besides head accessories). I also have some difficulty with certain poses, the whole thing of them not having a body really limits their physical emoting.

This guy is from a larger sketch I’m working on. I did a quick color test to see how I liked the look, so far I’m happy with it. I expect though that there will be lots more experimentation!

The top one is from the Cloud World universe, the bottom image doesn’t have a home yet. It almost looks like it could be underwater, though that wasn’t what I had in mind. I’m thinking it’s a jungle area with a lot of plant growth and a dense atmosphere.

I’ve noticed an improvement in my digital painting recently which has inspired me to finish some older works. I want to finish my three point perspective illustration from last semester. I had been a bit daunted by the image, but I feel prepared to get back into again. I’ll start on that tomorrow after I get some web work done.

After I create a few more brushes I’ll make them available for download.

This is the image I created for the brush: