Pencil Sketch

Just a quick sketch I did a couple weeks ago.

Extreme Pumpkin Carving

If you've never heard of extreme pumpkin carving, this link has some great examples. However, please refrain from looking at it until you've looked at my pumpkin so that mine doesn't look so bad.

I have been wanting to try extreme pumpkin carving since I first saw the infamous Predator Pumpkin, but I've been too scared to try it. I've never sculpted or carved anything before, but I'm content with my first attempt at it.

Now, this might look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, but it was actually supposed to be Cthulu. Fortunately, my wife and her younger sister inadvertently helped my pumpkin look more like Cthulu with their pumpkins.

Kimberly was going for some weird geometric design that ends up looking like R'lyeh. And in case that didn't make it clear enough that this was Cthulu, the viewer would look at my wife's pumpkin and say "Oh, now I get it, that's Cthulu's flying cat!" Cause if Cthulu was going to have a pet cat, it would have wings.

Below is a couple of views of hastily carved wings and my original concept art.

Ok, now you can go look at that link.

Eliana

click to enlarge.

This is the result of a character design, that I tried to turn into piece that ended up as an experiment and learning experience. I originally drew Eliana as a Dungeons and Dragons character (Eladrin Warlord) for my wife. I thought that if I made her pretty enough and if I created a back story for her that would involve her being a princess that my wife would be willing to play. Fast forward a year later, I hadn't been drawing as much as I would have liked and I kept coming across this drawing. I felt that when people saw it they didn't see what I saw when I looked at it, and I had been wanting to try my hand at digital coloring so I decided to use this one. After months of learning, studying, practicing and a little bit of coloring, I made it to this point. I had originally planned to do more with it, as I tried to add more to the picture, I kind of realized that it's very rare and very difficult to add to a picture an emotion or action that you hadn't originally intended to be there from the start. At least, not once you've arrived at this point, and this is the point I was at when I tried to add more.

Anyway, I really pushed my personal limits coloring Eliana. I tried some things that I had never tried before and I feel very satisfied with the results. I also learned a lot on this one. When I started coloring this image, I thought it was going to be one of my best, and by the time I was halfway through, I decided it was crap and I could do better.

Anyway, I can see some things that I like about this image and some things that kind of bother me, but I am curious to see what others think when they see it. What looks good to you? What do you think could be improved?

Oh, and BTW. One thing I learned a little too late is Web Safe colors. In my opinion, the colors look great on my monitor. But when I look on it on my work monitor all the colors look bland and faded, and the skin looks orange. When I look at it on my wife's iPad, it looks kind of in between. Let me know how they look on your screen, I am hoping they look better on more monitors than not.

Perfectionism: A Flawed Perspective?

At the beginning of a project at work that had a pretty tight deadline, the Project Manager on the customer's side sent out an email describing the importance of avoiding feature creep. At the end he included a quote that said "Perfect is the enemy of good." I don't have time to write a post going as in depth with this subject as I would like to, but at the least maybe it will spark a discussion, or at least give everyone something to chew on.

In my career, and in my personal projects, I have been thinking a lot recently about perfection, and how inefficient it can be. I have been accused from time to time of being a perfectionist, and recently as I have been trying to increase my efficiency at work, and spreading my free time across multiple personal projects at home, I have been questioning the effectiveness of wasting time being perfect. Today, I accidentally came across this blog post which provided some definition on the abstract ideas floating around in my head on the subject. Ironically, I felt that it clarified to me that some of my least favorite flaws about myself probably come from my inability to recognize when myself or others have done a good job, or even a great job, and move on to the next task, rather then getting hung up, upset, or negative because the job isn't "perfect" by my standards.

I am not trying to vindicate shoddy work. Great work does not have to be perfect. Improvement should still always be sought for. We should always be trying for the best that we are capable of doing. But with a little extra mental effort on our part, we might be able to recognize that the best we are capable of in our social lives, career, or personal projects is not just one absolutely perfect task, but instead accomplish a lot of tasks that we perform very well.