New Portfolio Update

I decided to make a generic illustration one and for the most part, this is set up  You'll find this one at http://camelendez.blogspot.com.

I still have to watermark a few other PDC promos before uploading them, and then I want to add three more sections: graphic design/advertising, character designs, and sketches.  Those will come at a later date.

Highly Experimental's School Uniforms, Part 1

Reference sketches of two team uniforms in highlyexperimental.net
Both will be used in this current chapter, as well as the mechanics team jackets that come later.

Geno’s school, The New Generations Science Academy (or just call it Newgens) has most of their students split into teams of relevant study, with a teacher in charge of each team. Each of those teams have their own specific uniform which is to be worn at team gatherings (which happen twice a week) or certain events where they need to be.  Outside of meeting days, students wear the standard uniform of white polo/button shirts with teal pants/skirts/sweaters/ties/etc.

Some students wear their team uniforms on non-meeting days to express pride of the team they’re in, but it’s generally considered extremely arrogant.  Terrie does not know this yet.  The teams can't compete each other formally for lack of common ground to compete in, but bragging points play a big role. The more your team accomplishes, the more you flaunt.

At present, Team Potpourri is an all-girls class and always has been an all-girls class, so Audrie blatantly kept the colors all purpley. the skirt is just past knee-length, but for someone as short as Terrie, it stops at her ankles.

Males can enter this class, but there aren't any interested yet at present. It actually isn't because of anything gender-related, but because the girls already in that class are pretty nasty and elitist.

Green popped up on Google several times as a relaxing color, so I thought it was a good choice for the psych team’s uniform on the right. Dark green dress shirts are default, but any non-revealing dark green top will suffice. Mary wears a skirt with the outfit, Kat wears whatever she feels up to (but she likes skirts very much).

The silvery blue colors are just reminders for me on the Mechanic Team’s uniform and the yellow is possibly for the Astronomy/space team.
There’s more teams than this, but none that the main characters are in so I haven't thought them up yet.
I’ll go into more details about the teams another time.

To script or not to script

"Also, since I’ve been wondering, do you use a storyboard/script to plan the plot, or do you make things up as you go?"

This was asked on the site around two months ago.
I have a written document of the main points that happen both in each chapter, as well as bigger events for the story as a whole. Sometimes I will make note of particular lines I want someone to say, but otherwise, this is just a list of actions with no words. … Except maybe, “they talk about science” or “riveting discussion about the clock”.

Then I draw the thumbnails of about 5 pages at a time to plan out how I want each shot to work, and then the dialogue is made up as I go.

Scripts don’t work for me because I hate reading scripts (nothing against them, just personal taste). I can’t imagine what’s going on as these guys are yapping because I’m just staring at the format and it’s hard to deduce what it’s going to look like as comic panels. If I draw the actions first, I can arrange the shots however I want, and this inspires better dialogue.

But as I said, it’s the main points that are planned out. I have a general idea for small happenings between them, but those holes are generally filled as I go along (usually by the time I get to those points, I have much better ideas for them). And sometimes things don’t work out as I’m drawing them, and I make changes as that happens.

Work portfolio blog coming soon.

In a hopeful attempt to increase my chance of job hunt feedback, I've decided to set up a Linkedin account and compile a portfolio blog of my works from Preferred Dental Care. I've gotten clearance from the previous manager last year just so long as I watermark the material.

And...

Well...

I have a lot of stuff to watermark. :)

The new blog will be found here though I may change the URL name when I think of something better.  ("Smilebaby" was taken.), as for why "Smile, Baby", let's just say that working in dentistry reminds me of one of the pause screen quotes from a Gameboy Advance game called It's Mr. Pants, though that saying is probably commonplace in  this world...

This week, I started Chapter 3 of Highly Experimental. I kind of don't like the fact that it took thirteen months to get this far, but I should be happy that I've made it this far at all. I've attempted comics, both fan and original since 2001, and I've always stopped after a few pages.  At Page 63 now, this is the longest running original project I've done, and while there's going to be, possibly a two-week break due to vacation and getting other needed things done, I do look forward to working on this.

There's also the print project: Getting HiEx published in book form.  Originally, this was going to be a novel, but then I decided to make it a comic even though I barely know how to draw anything in the story, and pretty soon, it will be a graphic novel.  I just need to find a good place to print. Lulu is too expensive and the format of these pages don't fall within Ka-Blam's standard or manga templates. The first volume will cover the prologue and chapters 1 and 2, which totals to 62 pages. I should put in some extras, yes? I have to decide on what extras they will be.

Hello again.

It's been about four years since I've updated this blog, maybe more. It's been an amazing adventure full of trolls, artists and dentists, slapping pictures on tumblr, and I've launched a webcomic, but right now amidst my adventures of job-hunting with the experience I've juggled at my last position, I found this really nice calling for social media management, but realized I haven't had a blog with with significant text content more than 160 characters long in quite sometime, and with my tumblr being too much of a flashy obnoxious image dump to be taken seriously, it's time to re-open this one.

It's also a pretty cheap move to do this when applying for work instead of having a blog already active when doing so. If I don't get the job, at least I can work on my blogging some more, right?

And let's keep it about stuff I like: Art, video games, and webcomicking. Maybe also what's gone on in my life these past two years. Right now I have a comic page to finish.

And remember the baby I posted pictures of in the old days? He's now four years old and playing Mario Galaxy on his own! :')