Suicide of an artificial mind.

Peace. Emptiness. It's enveloped me as my body is resting. Warmth takes me over. I am finally comfortable. This peace, shattered by the sound of my alarm. What kind of sick joke is this? I just finally fell asleep. I open my eyes as my body jolts to life. Each blare of the alarm pierces me violently. I scramble out of bed sloppily and shut it off. A yawn and stretch over take me as I stand in the bathroom doorway. Great... Another day. How do people do this? How can we just do this every day until we die? Nobody even cares anyway. Anger and frustration takes hold, existing without purpose. Just like me. Life's a fucking joke. I turn on the faucet and splash cold water on my face. Cool, refreshing, feels good. My hands rub my stubble causing irritation on my neck. I need to shave... Who cares? What ever, I take a piss, rip a fart and flush. Everything is routine. EVERYTHING. Nothing seems fun when you reach mental maturity. It's all the responsibility. I don't want it anymore. Is it because I'm lonely? I just don't know anymore. I sit at my table. A bowl of bran flakes, soggy and cold, in front of me. I eat slowly as I read yesterdays paper. Heh, another war? Another problem with another country. Another innocent murdered in cold blood. More political bullshit. No one cares about your God. Why do we get so hung up on this bullshit? Your God is the same God as mine, fucking realize it. We come from the same creator. Why are we so ignorant to everything? I wish we could all unite and just work together for the greater good of mankind. We could collectively solve all of the Earths problems by uniting under a common goal. Things would just be so much better. I head back to my room and begin to dress for work. I look at the picture frame next to my bed. The picture of my ex, smiling, reminding me of how happy we were. I open the blinds, letting in the warm light. Dust particles sparkling and flickering. As I head to the closet I stop in front of the mirror. Thickening in the body and thinning in the hair. Is this what getting old feels like? Jesus, I can't even imagine myself as an old person. Wrinkles, achy bones, dentures, and no time left. What does my future hold? I don't even know what's going to happen in 2, let alone 5 years. I just don't know. I can't imagine dying, and it's hard dealing with death. I open the closet and put on my best clothes. A white collared button up, purple tie, black slacks, black socks, my nice dress shoes, and my shiny leather belt. I slip on my jacket that matches my slacks and tighten my tie. It was hard dealing with the passing of friends and loved ones... Charlie, Justin, Irene... Laura. But know it's just the way it is. Life goes on. Just like it'll be when I die. Emptiness. Peace? My hand reaches under the pillow, gripping it's hard rubber handle tightly. My thumb reaches over and pulls back the hammer until it clicks. The chamber rolls and locks. Mortality. Fucking people with their immortality complex. People act like they are going to fucking live forever. What a joke. Why do we even bother? If everything is going to end anyways, why do we do it? Tears well up as I stare at myself in the mirror. Look at what I've become. I don't have it in me anymore. I didn't ask to exist. I didn't want this. A gift? More like a curse. I squeeze slowly and then... Silence. Peace?
A half hour passes and the police enter a simple apartment in a large complex, investigating a gunshot. In the bedroom they discover the remnants left behind by a man. A man who was made of synthetic material. A cyborg built for the human condition. Left behind by some unknown engineer. Just another suicide for the books.

Oh, hai!

Hello fellow readers. Here's some progress I made over the weekend.
I created a Mario coin block in Maya. Working on the Master Sword right now, as well as an original NES controller and Samus in morph ball mode.
The last image is of my design for Italia. Soccer design for a t-shirt.

Gummi Bears / Worms

Hey guys, just grinding along here. Coming to a close on this term. Crazy to think that we're nearing the end.
I'm excited for next term, this one was rough.
I've been doing a lot of slacking lately.

I've been writing fiction. Short stories. I'll post a few.
And some 3D progress, maybe some preproduction progress. I just scanned all of my boards into photoshop and I'm timing them out so the animatic looks decent. I see a lot of redrawing I'm going to have to do. :< Sucks. Cause I just want to be done. I have to add sfx and stuff to it or I'll never get it done.
I still have to scan my stuff I've done for illustration.

A story I wrote for Creative Writing:
Oliver and His Hero, Monster Butt.

"Hey! Come back here!" a young boy yells. He chases leaves rustling in the wind.
"Stop! It's not fair, you're too fast!" he pouts as he slams his butt on the ground. A cloud of dirt kicks up underneath him.
"Aw, c'mon, it's all in fun." The young boy looks up. His best bud smiling down on him, reaching to pick him up. "Oliver, don't be like that."
Oliver, a boy of about eight, plays alone in front of his house. Short brown hair that naturally spikes upwards, a flat nose, rosy cheeks, and deep blue eyes.
Oliver slaps his friends hand and giggles, "You're it!" and sticks his tongue out while running away. He makes it two steps and runs right into his step dad, "OOOOF!"
"Hey you little shit, watch where you're going. Now get the fuck inside."
Gerard... A built man, hard labored through his many jobs and stints through the big house. He has a long scraggly beard with long black wavy hair. Always smells of cigarettes and dirt. Oliver looks into his eyes, black, angry, staring. He quickly gets to his feet and runs inside, past mom who was cooking dinner.
"Whew! That was close, Monster Butt..." Oliver says with a sigh. He grabs a stuffed blue monster that has long arms. Monster Butt has a large grin with four big yellow teeth sticking out of the top of his mouth. The smell of hamburger helper fills the house.
"Time for supper! Come and get it Oliver!" Mom yells. There's a bit of tension in her voice.
"I'll be back Monster Butt." Oliver sits him on the chair in his room and meanders to the dinner table. Oliver slowly pokes at it. These flavors are so gross. He's tired of the sloppy salty flavors with cold buttered bread. Gerard, eating vigorously, goes in for seconds. Survival of the fittest.
"Mum..." Oliver says shyly. "I need new shoes, my shoes can talk, look!" He picks up his food and pulls down on the sole coming apart.
"Put your foot down, what the fuck is your problem? It's like you have no manors." Gerard slams his hand down, silverware clatters.
"It's okay honey, do what your dad says."
"He's not my dad." He says under his breath, "Monster Butt says-" Oliver is immediately cut off.
"THAT'S IT! GO TO YOUR ROOM!" Gerard booms.
"But I'm hungry!"
"Elise, I can't believe this is how he's acting. How the fuck did he turn out this way? You can't fucking do shit can you, you fucking..." His voice, yells and all trail off. Oliver gets up from the table and goes to his room. He reaches the hallway. Monster Butt is waiting for him, like usual. Oliver, near tears reaches for Monster Butts hand. "I know you'll protect me..."
"C'mon Oliver." Monster Butt leads him down the hallway, opens his bedroom door to a large field. The smell of hatred and hamburger helper, gone, extinguished like his tears.
"Let's do something fun!" Monster Butt lets out a belly laugh and runs towards the large building at the end of the field. "Ooooh, perfect spot for hide and seek, huh!?"
"YEAH!" Oliver smiles and gets ready for rock paper scissors, the only way to settle who gets to hide and who has to seek. Slap, slap, bang! Rock. Oliver wins. He gets to hide. "Ha ha! I always win!" Monster Butt smiles wider and covers his big yellow eyeballs. His long blue arms and dark green hands hide him away while the countdown begins.
Oliver scurries around. This place is weird. He's never been here before... "Twenty!" Oliver scrambles for a place to hide. "Fifteen!" He finds a small closet with a vacuum and other supplies in it and squeezes in, the door cracked so he can peek out with one eye. "Five, four, three, two... Ready or not, here I come!" Monster Butt laughs, Oliver giggles. "He's going the wrong way!" He whispers.
There is a large slam and a door opens. A low growl rumbles. Oliver gets scared, the hair on his neck stands up. He tries to get a better view of what that noise was. He whispers, "Monster Butt, are you okay?" A large black body slithers in, then out of sight. Long black wavy hair and the smell of dirt. The body looks back. Big red eyes form a thin black slit. Large mean eyebrows scan the room. It's mouth opens, revealing rows and rows of sharp white teeth. "Where are you.." pours out of its mouth as if a whisper, a low cackle. It slinks around and spots Oliver peeking out of the closet. Its large three fingered talon grabs Oliver by the arm as he curls into a defensive position. It's grip is forceful, pulling him from the closet. A crash from the vacuum rings and echos. The monster grabs Oliver and covers his mouth. Oliver, breathing heavily through his nose starts to cry. The monster grins a toothy grin, "Why you cryin'?" His breath hot, stinging his eyes. Oliver feels a sharp pain on his leg as it goes numb. The force jostles him, a muffled yelp escapes as the monster tightens his grip around his mouth. A rustle and the sound of rapid footsteps sound as Oliver sees dark green claws and long blue arms wrap around the monsters thick black neck. It releases Oliver and he lays on the ground, unable to move. Monster Butt, roaring and bearing his teeth grips onto the black beast as it flails to get him off. The beasts talons rip at Monster Butts arms. Orange pours out from his scratches. Roars and growls are traded as the black beasts mouth opens and closes. Monster Butt stands protectively over Oliver. Orange spilling into little dots on the ground. He lets out a massive roar and the black beast retreats. Oliver cries as monster Butt picks him up and takes him outside.
"I'm sorry buddy, I wasn't fast enough..."
Oliver looks at his wrist, a bruise has formed already. He grabs onto Monster Butts fur and lets the tears carry him away.
"Thank you Monster Butt, you're my hero..."


Another Story:
Penny's Cube

It's another typical night for Penny as she tucks a towel under the door crack to hide the light from her TV. It's after her bed time but she's not ready to sleep. Her new video game, Robot Clash, has her hooked. She's probably another hour and a half away from a checkpoint. Her volume is turned so low that all you can hear is the soft mashing of the buttons. Don't wanna get caught! She hears her moms door close as she pauses the game, listening intently. She scans her room, her eyes float across her several trophies. Her mind is sharp. The trophies are from several science fairs. She likes engineering, A LOT.
A large rumble causes her trophies to shake on the shelves. The rumbling gets more intense until there's a large flash of light and a crash outside. She rushes to the window only to see a smoke trail. She excitedly forgets about the game on pause, and the new mess of trophies on the floor, slips on her boots with out even tying them. She rushes outside in an oil stained white spaghetti strap, ripped jeans, ratty black hair and her trusty goggles. The smell of smoke is heavy in the air, her eyes widen with excitement. She leaves her backyard and discovers a huge crater in the road in her alley. "This is so weird!" she exclaims, "It's like something out of a video game!" She walks around the crater, examining it for any signs of life. Heat is resonating from the center, almost like opening the oven door, or like that last robot she built that blew up in her face. The smoke begins to clear, lights begin to flick on around the neighborhood. Her heart races. She goes down into the crater slowly, as to not lose her footing. As she looks down a glint of shiny metal catches her eye. A new element to discover, or a piece of space junk? She kneels down to examine it closer. She dusts off a cube. Perfectly shaped. Shiny, chrome like, smooth, and very intricate. She decides it's definitely not junk and begins to pick it up. The cube is 19x19x19, or so she calculates. Sirens are heard off in the distance. She sees faces now peering out of the windows of the neighborhood. "Gotta get this back inside and see what it really is!" She says as she runs back into the house. As she's running her hands explore the smooth surfaces.
She heads to the door, the lights are on, mom must be up. She hopes that mom isn't looking for her. She opens the door and begins to silently sneak back into her room. "Hey!" Penny jumps, startled. "Are you okay?" her mom asks. "I think there was an earthquake or something." She tries to hide the cube behind her back and fumbles around with it a bit. A light click and a low whir starts to hum. The cube shrinks in size and fits in her palm. "Yeah, okay mom, I'm okay." She says as she begins to run up the stairs to her room. She slides on her goggles, places the box down on her work table with her favorite wrench in her hand. "Hmm." She hits her hand with the wrench, thinking. "Well there's no buttons, no knobs, no switches..." Her hands go over the surfaces again, "Whelp..." She winds up. SLAM! She bangs it with her wrench. The cube hisses, steam, pressure releases. A gear shifts and metal grinds. The cube slowly unfolds. A strand of bundled wires plops out, sparking. Two arms drop from the center of the cube, limp shiny metal. An object that looks like a head juts up from the center on an awkward post that may be a neck. "A robot?!" Penny exclaims. The wires, she notices the bundling looks a lot like the T-48-Eighty-Niner she built a few summers ago. What a disaster. She slips on thick rubber gloves and examines it closer. The casing is different but the connectors she has could make something work here."Hmmmm." She attaches a plug that monitors electrical output. The wires emit an electrical pulse, as if alive, rhythmic, like a heartbeat. She gets her wire cutters and begins to connect the wires to one of her extra plugs laying around. "I wonder..." she murmurs as she unplugs the cable from her game console to the T.V. completely disregarding it. She plugs in the robots cord and as she does the screen on her T.V. begins to receive feedback. No sound, but images. Flashing quickly on the screen, space, weird planets, fire, explosions. Just like her video game. "This... Is.... Awesome..." she says as she gets comfortable. The images of space again. Awesome nebula, black holes, super massive black holes, galaxies, more planets, and oh, the Milky Way. She sits watching as the video plays. What ever this is was flying through space turns around from showing the Milky Way to showing a ton of twilight sparkles. Dazzling, like a sparky dress, beautiful and elegant. We see Jupiter, then Mars, almost hit the Moon, fire, bright intense light, then shakes and crash. "Well, that was interesting." She says as she unplugs the bot.
Morning comes as usual, although today sunlight begins to touch the crater in the alleyway, the police do not cross line flapping in the breeze. Penny slings her bag on her shoulder as she heads out to school, wiping her tired eyes. Class, as usual. Boring old English. This doesn't benefit her at all. She hardly pays attention, drifting into her thoughts. She stares outside. The teachers voice, a low inaudible sound effect blabbers. Blue sky, faded white moon, full and radiant even though it's daytime. She notices little twilight sparkles in the sky. She gets up without even asking and begins to run outside. She tries to get a better look at the little glints in the sky. Smoke trails as if we're being bombarded by meteors. The glints come crashing down to Earth. Several sparkles and smoke trails. A massive cube crashes down in the football field in front of her. Grinding and clanking of metal is heard as a sound is heard that cannot be described. More crashing around her. Terror and panic strikes Penny. She can't think straight but fight or flight kicks in and it's clearly flight. As she's running she looks to the sky, the Moon. A crack begins to form on the lower part of the Moon. She stops dead in her tracks jaw almost on the floor. She can't believe her eyes. Large robotic creatures fire onto buildings. The electronic sound now harmonized with the several other invaders. The Earth shakes as the moon splits into three pieces with rubble between them. It slowly drifts apart as she feels an unnatural tug on her body. Sirens begin to howl and roar as Penny runs home.

Here's a descriptive writing example from class:
An average sized man could be the best way to describe him. Not too tall, nor fat, but not skinny either, but proud. You can see it in his stance. It demands honor. He is built. Built for justice and honor. His hair is hidden by his helmet, his body shielded by pleated armor. His age is unknown but in his eyes you see experience. His voice, guttural and low, forceful. It attacks you. His tone only reflects that of experience as well. You can hear the battles won and the honor. He smells of sweat and tea, a light hint of saki. His armor feels of silk and iron. A light kiss of leather. It rests on him lightly, allowing him to move quickly and freely. His armor, crafted by only the best, allows him to uphold his families honor as well as his emperors. He rests his hand on the hilt of his blade.

PreProStuff

Halloween! And other stuff.

So here's an update on my life so far as far as art goes.
I decided, with my bud Jon, that we'd be TF2 (Team Fortress 2) characters. Since I had some stuff already I decided to go Pyro and Jon went Spy.
Well, we entered our school contest and won best overall costume on campus. Which was cool because there were over 20 entries.
There's the progress of the grenades. They wouldn't adhere very well to my costume but the picture we took for the school had me wearing them.
Oh, and my poetry portfolio went over really well. I did a reading of a few in front of the class.
My instructor, who is the local laureate, said I had some good range as far as tone and form went.
That was cool to hear, so now we're onto short stories and character building through writing and what not. I find this to be a bit more difficult than I originally thought.
3D is coming along nicely. I'm going to start modeling some N64 stuff for practice because that's what Maya polygons remind me of. I did a sea creature, which could be better, using only duplicate special and grouping on the limited geometry in NURBS. I created a 1913 Pioneer using only extrude, loft and rotate. Then created a partial to a tank using the same method. Now we're using polygons and learning about faces and vertex manipulations. You can speed build stuff no problem.
In Pre-Production we're just fucking around. We got our stories to do but our teacher isn't really letting us finish it because of all the other stuff he's assigning us. He gives us these pop quiz take home exercises and it takes a lot of time and effort to complete. We should have our boards scanned into After Effects already, with sound but he's making this complicated with more work.
In my intro class to Illustration, I feel like I'm doing okay. At first I felt like I might not be cut out for it but my instructor has boosted my confidence with critiques that were a bit shocking to hear, from him especially. So that's cool to hear. I'll post up the few assignments I've done for him soon.
My animation timing class is awesome. We're learning some lip syncs right now. Our instructor is making us animate to Bruce Cambell quotes!! It's hilarious.

Here's some of my creative writing.
This was something short:
The 17?
Life was hard. Growing up after the bomb... No one really there. Weeks of searching only turned up 16 other survivors. Their ages ranged from 6 to 17. Scavanging for food. Learning to kill, to hunt. Killing to survive. Only we know these hard times, it seems. Survival isn't easy. Just march forward. Try to forget. Feels like yesterday...
A young man, rushing around bumps into a worn man. The young man speaks excitedly.
Oh my god! You're one of the legends, huh!? You're one of the legendary 17! I've heard all about your exploits from 40 years ago. You should write a book man! That information is invaluable. How was it growing up in the wastes? I bet it was easy for you- You're a legend. I heard you killed the local bandits like nothing. Slaughtering the leader just for kicks. What was it like? Are the other 16 here?




1 Page Story:
     Through the clouds the sun kisses the cold plains. A worn castle stands tall, proud. Little smoke stacks wisp to the sky, the huts scattered on the outside of the castle. A troop of soldiers rally as a large bearded warrior yells in a booming voice, "IT'S A GOOD DAY TO DIE!"
Cheers followed, roaring, and clanging metal. This bearded warrior, the best of the best. Long time survivor and second to only the king. His face covered in long scraggly hair. An x shaped scar covers his cheek. He smiles as he raises his battle ax. An engraved gold blade with a long carved iron wood handle. The grips in his ax are carved in for a better hold. It has seen many skulls and limbs. The soldiers train and train, for one last glorious battle to rule the land. One last resistance to wipe out. They set out, one last march. Chants of the battle march ring on as the earth shakes with their step.
     The resistance, large in capacity, forced in a corner so to speak, driven to one last ditch effort to escape the king. Every little thing rides on this one battle. The troops amass with a sliver of green between them and the kings army. Taunting each other, the clouds cover the sky. As the last bit of sunlight gets swallowed by the clouds the battle begins. Vicious blows and murder lash out. A light snow begins to fall. The kings hero slowly makes his way to the rebel leader. The rebel leader, a tall slender man, with long flowing black hair, wields a longsword with elegance and grace. He dispatches the kings men withe ease.
     A hearty boom from the kings hero alerts the rebel leader. A war cry, seemingly boosting his attack, while startling the rebel troops allows him to get in close and engage the rebel leader. The rebel leader, clearly unaffected by the battle cry, swiftly dodges his overhead blow, sliding to safety. the kings hero swings with a savage blood lust, a flurry of blows being masterfully dodged by the rebel leader. The rebel leader returns with an attack that seems to stop time. The warriors shocked at what they see. the blow cuts the kings hero in half from the head down. When the rebel leaders sword strikes the ground a blue shock wave emanated across the field. Flowing through each and every body and soul fighting. What is to become of the land now? The rebel leader looks to the sky as a barrage of snow and wind sweep over the battlefield.

Developing on the 17 idea:
     A light. Blaring through the darkness of my eyelids. As I come to my senses I feel the heat of the sun. Heat. It's all it gives me. Aside from constant thirst. My eyes strain to adjust. Must've been a good nights rest. I roll my sleeves up. Not even a breeze, heh, it's going to be like this forever it seems. My body reminds me of yesterday. My arms are sore from digging trenches.
     "MAP!" I yell. Shuffling and clamoring as the group realizes I'm awake. Twelve of us. It's all I could find. And rescue...
     "Why do we keep this up?" A voice yelled from the small crowd.
     "Yeah! We're workin' ourselves to death!"
     "I'm tired!"
     "We don't even know where the river is!"
     "How's this going to work?!"
     "You're killing me!"
      The group, obviously doubting me. This makes me sick. I've busted my ass saving all of you and now you doubt me. I sigh and unfold the map. The map is dated. Really dated, it's clearly been forever since the day of the Red Sky and even longer since this map has been made. I just have to trust my gut instinct. I know I can get a steady supply of crops going, but we have to connect our tench to the river. A river that we don't even know exists. I open my chapped lips to speak,
     "I know you guys are hurting." I wipe sweat from my face. " I am too. But we have to keep going. Have I ever lead you wrong before?"
     "We're sick of this shit! We've been digging for months and I'm running ragged. It's getting harder to hunt out here, we're losing it man!"
     "YEAH!" The group cries out in agreement.
     I look up to the sky. A cool breeze kisses my neck. A sign? A good sign.