I put on my "Director's hat", and put together this little feature using my new Nikon D3200, It takes very good quality video at 1080p. I did all the editing and post work in Blender's video editor, a feature that Blender has had for quite awhile, but hasn't pushed as a big feature, although they seem to be doing some more development on it now. It's pretty well featured and I'm liking exploring it's feature set.

A 3D Weekend

I've dipped my feet back in the 3D pool this weekend. It's been awhile since I've worked with Blender. I started working on an animated logo for a new Youtube channel I'm putting together, which will coincidentally be called "Graphic Pizzaz!", but of course I got sidetracked and wound up working on these. Not what I was going after, but they helped re-sharpen some of my skills that were a little rusty. 

Click for larger images

My new channel isn't quite ready yet, but it will hopefully soon be filled with tutorials on Illustrator, Blender, Sketchbook Pro and other graphics programs which I enjoy using. Don't worry, as soon as it's ready, I'll definitely be posting links here when I put something new up!

Our Welcome Week Poster I Recently Made

     I haven't been posting here regularly like I wanted to. I've just been kept too busy lately! Summer started out much too slowly, with nothing to do, and now I've got the opposite problem. Here's one of the things that's been keeping me so busy. We needed a Welcome Week flyer that would catch everyone's attention and get across all that we've got going on during that week here at school. I like how it turned out myself, I think it will definitely be eye-catching. What do you think?

Net Neutrality and the ISP's

I was reading this article on CNET, and found this quote from the article hilarious!

Meanwhile, executives from Comcast and Verizon have called Netflix's claims bogus, stating that what's really been happening between the companies has been quibbling over business arrangements over who will bear the cost of network upgrades. They say that the fees Netflix has been asked to pay are standard in the industry.

The real joke here is, it's basically Comcast and Verizon that are the ones who "set the standard" in the industry! That's kind of like the fox saying that it's not unusual for fifteen or twenty chickens to go missing each week from the coop!

Trying To Get Back Into The Swing Of Things

I've been trying to get back into the swing of things, (you know, doing some artwork, or at least something of a creative nature), but I'm finding it hard to do after getting back from vacation. After all, it's been back to work as well, which requires me to be creative...and I can't share any of that here, at least until after it's been used for it's purposes anyway. Also this past weekend the wife and I spent it painting a room in our house and rearranging two rooms to better suit us now that we're alone in the house.

I did make myself sit down the other day and engage in a little doodling. I sometimes find it helps to just sit there with a blank sheet of paper and start with some simple shapes and see what comes out of them. Nothing here that's going to set the world on fire, but then it doesn't have to. The only purpose to doodling is to loosen up the artistic spirit and get the ol' juices flowing again. 

So, the next time you feel yourself wallowing in self-doubt, or you just don't know what kind of project to tackle next, get out a piece of paper and a pencil and just start doodling, it'll lead you somewhere eventually!

Vacation...or Why I Haven't Been Posting

     Well, summer hasn’t even officially started, yet I feel I’ve already had my share of vacation already. My wife and I just got back from a ten day trip to Oregon to visit our son and his fiancée who just recently moved out there. It was a great trip, and wonderful to get to see them after so many months without them being at home with us, but I’m totally exhausted after all that traveling, clocking in somewhere around 5,000 air miles…too bad I didn’t have a way to log any of it as “bonus miles”!

     We spent all our time in Bend, Oregon, in the mountains. It’s an area called the “high desert”. The weather there is gorgeous, certainly better than the cold/hot/humid spring that you get in Indiana where we live. Of the ten days we spent there, it was either in the upper 50’s or the upper 70’s, and either one pretty much felt the same. Even on the cool days, shirt sleeves felt comfortable. I guess it’s due to the dry air and the sunny days in the thinner atmosphere. My wife and I visited Lava Butte on one of those beautiful days, a cinder cone in the Deshcutes National Forest that at its top is an elevation of 5020 feet! Below are a couple of photos, the first of the cinder cone itself, which is much more imposing than the photo shows, and a selfie I took of myself and my wife as we wandered through the lava field at the base of Lava Butte.

   Vacation is over now though, and it’s back to work and hopefully soon I’ll be doing some more graphic design work that I can share here on my blog with you!

Spring Semester Has Ended!

Well, spring semester has ended for me. It's always a bitter-sweet thing when the semester ends, especially the spring semester. It seems I just get into a good groove about the time the semester ends. My big accomplishment this semester was of course passing math. Not only did I pass it, but I managed to pass it with a final grade of "B"! If you'd told me I'd have been getting a "B" in college level algebra a couple of years ago, I would have called you a LIAR sir or madam.  :)

Now I've got two and a half months or so without classes. I'll still be pretty busy, I've got a job as a student-worker which while only twenty hours a week, will certainly help pay the bills, and will keep me in touch with some of my fellow students and my instructors. I'm also planning to keep honing my skills, particularly my web-design skills by indulging in some of the free online courses available for learning html and CSS.

Today, I presented my Advanced Imaging class with my final project which involved 10 pieces which I dubbed my, "Truth in Advertising" series. Here are a few of the pieces that I thought came out best.