Punching Pandas

Happy New Year, everybody!!! Boy, does it feel good to start the new year on a fresh note! I love this time of year where you can start new goals on a clean slate. But Nolen, you say, it’s the last day of January, New Years is over. Oh, I guess it is. Well, I’ll still have a post in January. How come you haven’t posted in a while? Uh… I’ve been busy. For a whole month??? Um… yes… but I had a lot going… GET BACK TO WORK, SLACKER!!!

Alright, alright, alright!!!

Here’s the update, folks:

I’ve been in the process of cleaning up my place. It’s mostly the little things like patching up unpainted areas, spackling holes, and repainting the tile around my fireplace… actually, it’s mostly painting the fireplace tile… no, it’s more like repainting the tile and then finding out that the contractor had used crummy spray paint around the fireplace. Since he used non-high heat spray paint, the stuff just bubbles and peels off whenever I light a warm, romantic fire… um… for one, of course…

No problem, I said, I could just sand it down and spray paint it again. But the more I painted, the more of the existing paint came off. And it’s not like the tile underneath looked that great either. So after thinking it over for a little bit, I made the next reasonable choice…

I WENT A’SMASHIN’!!!

[ahem]

After I was through taking a crowbar to the tile, I realized later at Home Depot that not many places carried 8″ tile, which is what was used all around the fireplace. Good work, smart guy! Hey now, I can figure this out. This little project is still in progress. Hopefully I can finish it up in the next couple weeks.

Things have been going well at the studio. Unfortunately, things were a little busy over at my current job, which took time away from the studio. This week has settled down a bit, so I should be getting more sketch time. I currently have a project that I’m working on. The reason there’s been a lack of art posts is that what I’m working on is proprietary information, so I need to ask my supervisors if I can post certain works. I’m pretty sure when it winds down, I can post the leftovers. I’ll try to fit in time to post up some of my own artwork here and there. I’m also thinking about starting a little comic if time permits. I probably lost most of my readers by dropping off for a month. Hopefully I can get this blog back up and running again.

Anyways, what’s a post without a sketch? It’s not much, and again, I can’t post everything up just yet. I’ll have more coming this year.

[Update: Technically, it's still January 31st on the west coast, but for some reason the timestamp says it's February already.  So I didn't miss out entirely on January, but technically I did... um... yeah...]

Sorry for the lack of sketches.¬† I went to the studio today and found out the basement got flooded, so they had to cut power and shut down the servers.¬† But at least I got a chance to talk to one of the animators and learned a little a bit about his background.¬† Sometimes I can get a little too focused on my work without taking time to getting to know people on a personal level.¬† I tend to think in the back of my mind that I won’t be in my current situation for very long and as a result, I sometimes don’t see the point in developing friendships and improving the relationships around me.¬† I know I shouldn’t be thinking like this, and today is one of those days that reminded me about how I take some relationships for granted.

Whenever I hear someone’s testimony about how great an experience was at a school, city, vacation spot, etc. I always hear that it’s usually more enjoyable because of the people, and I think that has a lot of truth to that.¬† Yet I still overlook those around me; whether it be forgetting someone’s birthday, not writing a thank-you note for a gift,¬† or give an encouraging word when someone needs it.¬† People have been put in my life for a reason, and it’s on me to make the most of every opportunity that’s provided for me.¬† I’m not sure if this is making any sense, but it’s getting late.

I didn’t have time to do sketches, but I figured I should still post some pictures up.¬† I keep a pocket-sized sketchbook with me for jotting down quick ideas.¬† Anyways, I posted a couple pages below.¬† Sorry if the pictures are blurry, but I’m too lazy to take them again.¬†P.S.

Happy birthday Sung Hon and happy belated birthday Maurice!

 

 

 

I’m fighting some bug I picked up last night. I tried to do a sketch session today but couldn’t draw worth jack after two hours. I’ll post something better later this week.