Wellcast

Sooo a while ago my awesome friend Jeff invited me to join the Wellcast animation team at Mahalo. And it's been great! With a group of about eight of us, we've already wrangled over 8,000 subscribers and over 300,000 views! The animation is very rough, but its more the content that gets the viewers interested. 

One of our videos was featured once, so it has a ton of views! BUT the second most viewed video is one I worked on, called The Party Survival Guide for Introverts. Again, the animation is rough, and I have like three days of turnaround time (ok, like seven, but I always procrastinate... plus I have my full time job too!), so it's not the most amazing animation. But its been a really fun time working on these! And now I have a partner to work with, so the workload is much better. We just put up our first joint animation, fittingly, on Procrastination. 

As I said it's been a fantastic time working on these, and we have 100 episodes to do all together (two released each week), so it'll be long time until we complete the project! And the viewers love it! We've been getting a lot of our ideas from comments. Soon Jeff said we'll be sharing our portfolio websites with the viewers, so I need to get working on mine... finally buy a domain haha.

Drawing Club 3 and Graduation

Here are some drawings from the LA Drawing Club a  few weeks ago. I still have a bunch more to post, but will do so in time!

My graduation ceremony is coming up and I am very excited to walk with my classmates :) Since it's the College of the Arts, it includes not only art but music, film, dance, theater, and design. And I have a couple friends in other departments, including one of my best buds, Gabby.

It's pretty crazy because once it's over, I'll permanently step into the realm of Not a Student Anymore, an area that looks down upon Messing Up, discourages Sleeping In or Partying It Up(the last two usually come hand in hand), and unfortunately lacks student discounts. I already have taken a tentative step into this place, having taken a full-time position and being expected to pay more bills and insurance payments, though I am still not completely comfortable here. I find myself sitting silently in the office kitchen while others chat about their 15-month old babies or their friends' wedding ceremonies, wondering instead if I can squeeze enough time out of my day to watch How to Train Your Dragon after work (I could not). I find myself in limbo, stuck between a world who calls me "ma'am" and my co-worker who calls me "kid." Somehow I imagine graduation to dramatically accelerate my slow drift into adulthood, though I know it will not. I try and think of ways to speed this up on my own by dressing less in printed t-shirts and more in ruffly tops and slacks, listening more to political radio, ...possibly pretending I have a baby? But then I remember that I've been an adult for far less time than I've been a child (4 to 18, a ratio of 2:9), and I probably just need more practice before I get it down right. 

New Work

Nothing much has changed since I last updated this blog with content on my own life, except that I started a new job :) It was quite by accident, as the freelance position I applied for ended up changing into a full-time animation assistant position for some Flash e-courses. It's pretty awesome so far, as I get to draw every day! Yay! I work in Glendale, but still live with my awesome grandmother, who has me to help her out with various activities, including making homemade kumquat preserves, weeding her garden, and watching Dancing with the Stars Monday and Tuesday nights. She is quite hilarious at times, and I hope to soon illustrate some of her antics here!

Until then, here are some work doodles (did you know I like cats?), and a drawing of a church tower from across the street at my work. My co-worker said he would like to draw the architecture, and I went along with him to the little courtyard at the Episcopal parish. It was quite nice, and the stained glass inside is phenomenal. I hope to draw more with him there soon!

Interview Attire with Diagram

Whenever I get an interview, I'm always worried about what to wear. Like most people, I am concerned about under dressing, what to do with my hair, what shoes to wear, if I should wear jewelry, etc. In a Non-Verbal Communications course, I was instructed to wear a two-piece suit, have my hair nice and back, wear small, closed-toed heels or pumps, and not wear any jewelry apart from simple earrings. However, a week before an internship fair on campus, I had an art teacher joke with some students and me about what to wear:

Prof: So you gonna come in all dressed with your suit and tie, nice shiny shoes with your hair all done?
Us: (not sure if he is being sarcastic) ...yes?
Prof: Haha no, really. Don't do that, you'll look like an idiot. Look at what I'm wearing, (gestures to self) this is what I would usually wear to an interview. A simple button down and some skinny jeans. Maybe comb my hair.
Us: ... wha? really?

So I made this chart to help myself and other artists on what to wear for your interview:

Of course for big companies I would stick closer to the traditional business side. But seriously, I showed up to an art interview once in exactly the traditional business attire, and the lady looked at me like I was crazy (I didn't get the position).