I finished editing the Hail Santa video tonight. I ran into some issues and learned a few things while working on it. First off, the DSLR camera (overhead) stopped recording and I had to start it up again. There was a notice on the display saying it stopped recording. Luckily I caught it after a few seconds. After Googling it, I learned that I need a faster SD card. My current card is too slow and can't keep up with the camera as it records video. The other option was to record at a lower resolution but I ordered a new card instead. After importing the DSLR and iPhone footage (side angle) into iMovie I learned the two videos didn't sync up. It took me a while to figure out that one video was slightly faster than the other. That shouldn't happen. My guess is that the slow SD card is the culprit. After doing my best to sync the two videos and cutting the hell out of it, I sped up the video from 18 minutes down to 40 seconds. I want to keep my videos short since most people on social media have little or no attention spans. But after speeding it up I realized the quick cuts don't look good at such high speed. I might export a version that's a little longer so the edits aren't as jarring. Either way, next time I edit, I need to mindful of the original video length and how much I need to speed it up. My family has always celebrated Xmas by staying up till midnight on Christmas Eve so on Christmas Day there’s not a whole lot going on. Usually I’m out of town at a relatives house, just lounging around and hanging out with my cousins. This year, because of COVID, there was no get-together. Today I just hung out at home and didn’t do much besides watch tv and movies again. I didn’t want to end the day without doing something fartsy so I did a quick drawing called “Hail Santa,” cause it’s Christmas.
I drew the Thank You card pictured below a few weeks ago for a cool gal named Lulu. She bought herself one of my t-shirts, and her mom really liked it, so she bought second one today. I drew her a second Thank You card (not pictured) and it's this dude's twin brother. I recorded myself drawing it using two cameras. I'd stay up and edit the footage but it's already 4:00 AM so it'll have to wait.
I started experimenting with multiple camera angles tonight. I used my DSLR, iPhone and a GoPro to record myself drawing. The first thing I realized after finishing was that I forgot to turn on my fill light. After importing the footage from all 3 cameras to my laptop I soon learned that iMovie only lets you work with two video tracks. I scrapped the GoPro footage and went with the iPhone and DSLR recordings. After messing around with the iMovie I put together the video below. I recorded myself doing a quick drawing using a GoPro Hero 3+ that I'm borrowing from a friend. I'm still waiting on parts to mount my DSLR overhead so I figured I'd test a different camera while I wait. The GoPro has three Fields of View and I used Narrow in this video because I didn't want to distort the image. The downfall is that I can't fit the entire page on the screen. After recording myself draw I edited the video in iMovie to speed it up (from 10 minutes to 30 seconds) and added some transitions, titles, & stock music. This afternoon I went over to Orange Moon Salon to hang my four drawings. They'll be on display there for a while. Go make an appointment to get your hair did and check out my art. Tonight I finished my last two drawings for Inktober 2020. The 30th is my face, all beat up, broken & undead. The 31st, which is Halloween night, I drew a trick or treating kid with tentacles wearing a ghost costume holding up 6 candy buckets. This was my fourth year doing Inktober.
I finally framed these four drawings because on Saturday they're going to be on display at Orange Moon Salon in San Jose. My friend, Catrina, is a hairdresser there, and also an artist, and she asked me to hang some work. These were originally going up at my exhibit at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library in May but covid ruined that. Six months later and they're finally going to be available for others see. Please wear a mask if you go!
Day 28 was originally going to be a hand coming out of a grave in front of a headstone inside a graveyard but everything else in the scene was taking away from the dead hand holding the pencil so I scrapped the rest.
Day 29 is how I feel sometimes when I draw. I love that I can do it, and have the patience to draw, but hate how long it takes. Hours and hours alone solely focused on my hand, the pen or pencil and the sheet of paper. It reminds of the chorus to the song, "Thin Line Between Love and Hate" by the Persuaders. Lately I've been thinking about my next t-shirt design. Originally, I wanted to do a design similar to this but with three heads instead of two, each one a different color. Today I drew it out with only two heads to see what it would look like and I really like. It doesn't look much different than the three headed variety and it would be easier and less expensive to print. I would tweak this image a bit and draw it digitally before going into production but this might be shirt number 4.
The computer head was how I felt after working on that CD layout job on the puter all day yesterday.
This morning I received a text from a groom whose wedding I DJ'd two years ago. He said every time he heard a song from the wedding he was reminded that he forgot to tip me. He Venmo'd me a very nice tip and totally made my day. It also inspired my Inktober drawing for Day 22 I drew myself as Bruce Banner transforming into the Hulk from the cover of his first comic book. I sketched it out a few times before laying down the final lines and inking. I included a sketched a did a couple weeks ago when I was considering doing "Jacktober" which is a variant of Inktober that pays tribute to comic book artist Jack Kirby. If I had more time I probably would have drawn Betty & General Ross equivalents down in the right corner to fill out the space.
Now that I'm done working on the skull I've been trying to catch up on my Inktober drawings. I only managed to ink three of them today.
Incase you missed it... a fly landed in Vice President Mike Pence's hair during the vice presidential debate tonight. It hung out for a little while and the vice president didn't even notice it. Instantly, all the social media platforms lit up with "flies on shit" jokes & memes. Kamala Harris is lucky it didn't land on her head too. Today I prepped the ceramic skull by first spraying it with a clear fixative so the pencil lines don't fade or smudge from constantly handling and applying & removing masking tape. After the fixative dried I masked off everything except for cells I was painting and propped the skull on the wooden bar I'm using as a stand. When I set it down I heard a crack. After painting the first color then removing the masking tape I saw that a pieces had chipped off and stuck the tape. Luckily it only broke into 3 parts and not a million tiny pieces so I glued them back on. I also poured glue inside the skull and let it coat the inside where it broke. That was all for today. Tomorrow I'll sand it down and continue painting. Thank god I didn't totally fuck it up. My Inktober drawing for Day 6 is based on today's mishap.
Only three days in and I've been having a tough time coming up with stuff to draw, I'm still not using prompts, and I've been a day late everyday.
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Frankie Mcfly's
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