In conjunction with my Career Management class, CM250, I recently took the Insights Personality Profile. The profile generated from my answers were more accurate than I had expected it to be, though after reading it a couple times there are some statements I wonder about. Today I scanned my profile, and uploaded it to this site for whomever wishes to read it. Feel free to make comments on it in the forum or via e-mail. I occasionally wonder how other perceive me... so here is everyone's chance to comment. *grin*

Well, the final quarter at MSB has begun. Spring seems upon us, as the countdown to graduation begins for several of us. I am looking forward to getting back to work. I enjoy being a student, but the 30k spent getting this degree is something I'd like to start getting rid of as soon as possible. This site will be up another seven weeks or so, and presently I have no plans to renew it. So, if there are any links, images, etc that any of you want, best make a copy soon before it disappears. Enjoy the quarter all.

Registered for the final quarter: CM250 Career Management (1 cr), a graded resume writing class for $330, SD285 Project Management (4 cr), and GD350 Game Development Production (5 cr). Not sure what my hours in the lab will be next quarter, but probably something similar to what I have now, T/Th afternoon and evening and W Day. I got the first three Frazetta Gallery pages connected to the images. I am going to try and get the remaining three pages done this weekend as well.

It's cold out there... so stay warm folks.

Thank God the quarter is over tomorrow... I can use the break. *grin* Well, at least the Game Math class is over... lotsa concepts and not as much hands on as I needed to start to appreciate it, but it was at least a beginning. Have a good holiday and a good end to the year. I still have not settled on a project for my final game in this program, and time is a running out... I guess thinking hard on this over the holidays will be my main project... like I need more projects. Happy Holidays!!

Registered for Winter quarter. It is nice to have all the classes I need back to back on two days instead of spread out over the week, especially during the colder months. The game math class is interesting, but visualizing what the numbers are doing has been quite a challenge. DirectX is the class I am enjoying the most this quarter, and we will continue to explore its functionality next quarter along with an algorithms and data structures class in C++.

Unfortunately, the only way to take advantage of how my classes fell next quarter is to cease working in the lab next quarter, which means I'll probably be putting in my notice this week some time. I interviewed to teach a couple classes out at ITT in Eden Prairie, but have thus far not heard back from them. My guess is that they will offer me the position only as a last choice. They desired a person with a Masters and I only have a Bachelors at present.

The cold weather is coming... time to wrap up tight and work on some games methinks.

Been busy with homework and personal projects so far this quarter, so I have not been updating the site as often as I would like. The only thing of relative import lately if for those folks into creating art assets for games, or just artwork illustrations for other clients. There is a magazine out called 'Illustration' which runs about $9.00 per issue for the new releases, and has back issues ranging from $9.00 to $35.00. They cover some well known illlustrators and show many samples of their work, some full page.

Once nice thing about Illustration magazine is that their first six issues are available as PDF files so you can see them before you invest any money in them. Haddon Sundblom is featured in the first issue, and Frank Frazetta in the second. Here are links to those issues. Enjoy. 1 2 3 4 5 6

Lastly, Troy sent me some notes from AD150 - Illustration class, so they are now posted in the MSB folder as well.

Spent most of the day collecting links to some of the better tutorials I have come across lately. These are drawing and traditionally related tutorials, mostly done in Photoshop, and I hope the students that visit this site find them useful.

Also uploaded more Line Art for practice. Now we have the original Line Art 1 (37 MB) and the newest set Line Art 2 Comics (37 MB) available to be downloaded. I am collecting up pieces for yet another Line Art collection, so if you have any pieces you would like to see in there, send them my way.

Added a gallery for the American Watercolorist John Pike to the Masters section. Put like 60 pieces of his work there for anyone interested in looking at them.

The September Color Challenge Poll is up, so cast your vote whether or not you submitted a piece. You can see the pieces turned in this month HERE if you are unsure who you wish to vote for yet.

Enjoy your week off. I am reading a math book and trying to get some painting in this week. Take care all.

Been a little while since I added anything new to the website. I've been spending much of my free time going through tutorials on one subject or another and trying to become more facile in the different mediums, Digital, Traditional, drawing, painting, programming, etc...

Today I loaded some animations and videos that are favorites of mine to watch on occasion. Some I aspire to achieve in quality some day while others just hit the right spot for my humor. If people like these let me know and I'll drop a few more in the folder.

Inbetween quarters will be the next Minnesota Game Jam at MSB so if you are unfamiliar with it, but it sounds intriguing, click on the link and then come and at least visit with us that first night. Hopefully we'll have more folks make it all three days and turn out some fun games. I am trying to get a few folks interested in making some game which uses cars so we can explore the coding for such concepts as acceleration, deceleration, frictional surfaces, vector tracking, and whatever else we need to make them go. Here is a thread for those interested in working on this project at the Game Jam.

In the spirit of the Color Challenge, I've collected up a large quantity of B&W Line Drawings (40 MB) for folks to practice with should they seek out more materials to do so. For those working digitally in Photoshop and looking for ideas for projects to work on, the worth1000 website has ongoing contests in several skill ranges.

The quarter is halfway over. I hope everyone is doing well and has energy for the remaining half. See you in school.

Put up a general texture collection. Unfortunately it came in at 84 MB which can be a hefty download if you are on dial up, so grab it if you want it. Not sure how any of the other students feel in modeling class, but we seem to be doing nothing but tutorials on our own. Going to get my guy walking today using the double bounce walk cycle from the Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams.

Added some specific tutorial collections to the links page. So who out there has a digital camera and would be interested in helping populate an online picture morgue of reference materials? Thinking of adding an Andrew Loomis bio and sample section to the site as well and finally finishing up the John Pike section. Are there any specific areas that people would like to see added?

Collected up some of my short stories and dropped them into my folder. If anyone bothers to read them and are interested to make any comments, especially criticisms, for they teach me the most, it would be appreciated. Not all are finished pieces, but most held something I enjoyed in them, and made them worth holding onto. This month I have mostly been coding and reading. I guess I need to get some more drawing in as well.

Did some research looking for what happened to the site which had Andrew Loomis's books on them.. it turns out that the address was www.saveloomis.org and not a .com address. Glad it is still out there. For anyone not familiar with his books, they are worth having... especially free as a .pdf file.

Noticed today that the Save Loomis site now appears to be gone from the web. It was a spot where one could download several of Andrew Loomis' art instruction books in .pdf format for free. If you are not sure who Andrew Loomis is, or do not have any of his books, just know you are missing out. Do some research on him if drawing is something that actually interests you. Also added some 3DS Max 7 tutorials that I found online. I am not presently vouching for their quality as I have not tried them out myself, but they are available none the less.

Ran across a critique of an artist's work by John Singer Sargent available in .pdf format.

Found an excellent Maquette Sculpting tutorial and, most importantly, if you are ever looking for human references quickly for a project, I found a website called Exactitudes that offers a large variety of images.

Had to reinstall my computer this weekend, so that is probably all I'll get accomplished for the moment.

Added a Class Work section to the forums so there was a central place for class specific ideas, help, thoughts. If anyone has ideas on what they would like to see, let me know. I would certainly prefer it if we had more folks participating and making use of the materials, whether they are in game programming, advertising design, or any other area of study.

Started organizing the practice images in the reference section so that they could be viewed individually or downloaded as a set enlarged and saved as a PDF file. Only have one of five sections done, and I won't upload them and change formats until they are all ready. Week two arrives... enjoy folks.

Well, class is once again in session. I thought long and hard about dropping the 3DS Max class because of the current book choices, but have decided to stick it out and just get it over with. I shall find the additionally needed materials on my own.

This quarter I am first in the lab at 7:30 am on Tuesday and Thursday, and 8:00 am on Wednesday. Wednesday I am pretty much in the lab all day as I don't have any classes. Feel free to come on by some time. Usually I am just in there drawing or working on some character.