A V-day card for ma darlin', though I kinda "whoopsed" up on the perspective and some botched clean up lines. If you can't tell what's going on, basically the heart-demons are about to lower me into a bubbling cauldron of chocolate, when a lone hero charges in with a 2x4! Though... I don't think the wood plank is a proper 2x4 length... OH WELL!
I'm hungry now...
YES! Finally got to go on the Rideau Canal yesterday and it was fantastic! And such a beautiful day! Not a cloud, though the sunnyness made me wish I'd remembered the location of my sunglasses. We skated the whole thing from Dows Lake all the way downtown. I think we were on the ice for two hours or so (stopped for bever tails along the way). And there were so many things to look at along the way! Horse drawn sleighs, bed racing, ice sculptures, spectacular wipeouts... twas great! Now all i have to do is go skiing once and then I'm done with winter. Bring on the spring!
At the end of our journey: Gerry, Matt, Andrea, Oscar and Rod.
Me n' Ger.
I took this one for you, mum!
Geeze, I hate windy night all on my lonesome, they creep me out. What I need are a good pair of rattle-proof windows.
Blegh, I went to a party the other day (a fun party) but I can still feel my lungs coated with second hand smoke. It got to the point where I was getting short of breath at the party and had to step outisde, and I can still feel a bit of that right now. I don't understand how you smokers can do it, I hate that feeling.
Japanese live Spider Man tv show folks! The intro alone is worth many a laugh:
http://youtube.com/w/toei-spider-man-ep-1---fansubbed-in-english?v=LOHwSnAIVc8&search=japanese%2
Got this off Adriana's LJ. A Dark Crystal sequel directed by Genndy Tartakovsky? I dunno what to think! :D
http://www.iwatchstuff.com/archives/2006/02/dark_crystal_sequel_in_the_wor.html
And yeah... case in point, didn't wake up until 12:10... bah.
Man, Russell Peters.... man.
This I did as part of that LJ tag going around where everyone's drawing Bat Girls. EVERYWHERE! I figure, I like to be included in things so I've done one too. This one's Jet Set Radio inspired... probably because I was listening to the music while conceptualizing.
Geeze, try as I might I can't get to sleep before 3 (case in point it's 3:01 right this minute) then I get mad at myself when I wake up at 1pm. Tommorrow I'm gonna TRY REAL HARD to get on the canal... unless it's melted... then I can't.
Guess I'll do laundry instead.
Yeaaaah, I suppose I should call the survey people back. I'm just too lazy.
Winterlude is starting up here in Ottawa and I'm getting really excited! Can't wait to skate the canal and check out the ice sculptures and pig out on beaver tails n' hot chocolate!
Also, I'm gonna soon start up on a short one-off comic concepted by my aunt (the young one.. who's also recently engaged! YAY!) so keep a look out for that over the next couple weeks. Ciao!
**Once again blogger posts these too small, or at least that's the way it is on my browser, so feel free to check this out at its source:
http://www.closet-space.com/comics/originalcomics/shrub-monkeys019.htm
Yay! My flowers aten't dead! Well... technically they are, but I mean they're not drooping sadly anymore since I've got them in the sun. Nat, Marcel's fiance, gave me these to cheer me up since I'm all alone and afraid this week while Andrea's in florida. Seriously, I freak out when I'm on my own, the slightest creak or crack gets me all nervous - wait, what was that!?!?!?!?
Also, I've finally been moved on to animating Carl Squared (the whole reason I came to Ottawa in the first place, augh!) so I should be starting scenes soon. And my neck aches something fierce these days! I'm in great need of a good massage.
Corpse Bride's namesake is such a stunningly beautiful character and I'd been meaning to do an illustration of her for quite a while. This is also an attempt to spruce up my tablet skills but I fear the clean up is going to take foreeeeever because I'm used to doing it on paper where I can shift it for easier wrist manuvers. Ah well.
In other news I'm stuffed to the brim with all-u-can-eat chicken wings (i ate 19, beating Justin and possibly Mike and Tony, though Marcel beat me by about 5... uuuurgh, I can't do that too often).
I've revamped my online portfolio (linked to closet-space.com's home page), given it an actual "closet-space" design and got rid of all the clutter; I had so much on it before, I wasn't listening to the age old proverb "Less is more." But now it's all tidy and neat... I just havent put any of my animation up yet, ehehhe. That's tommorrow's job.
Now, I SLEEP!
In respose to Lu's post quite a while ago about us all posting up kids picks of ourselves, here's lil ol' me. Kid's pictures crack me up because while I can look at anyone's baby photo and pretty much recognize that it's THEM as a child, I can't really recognize myself at all. It's like we have albums of my family but I'm not in them, this goofy blond kid is.... with 60's lady hair as Gerry has repetedly pointed out. -___-
In more current affairs I am on my last can of soup. After this my only sources of food will be a soon-expired squeeze bottle of miracle whip, a dry block of cheese, and a tin of shotrbread cookies that I cannot touch because my grandma gave them to me to give to my great aunts who live here in Ottawa. Work's been awesome, I blasted past quota and had a lot of fun chill-time with my work buddies.
So... yeah! Soups on!
As always, all Shrub Monkeys strips are autobiographical, which means 15% percent truth and 100% fiction. I love the freedom of slapping down rough sketches for these comics without even worrying about clean up.
If for some reason internet explorer is being a putz and making these SMALLER than I intended, which it tends to do, today's strip is also posted here:
http://www.closet-space.com/comics/originalcomics/shrub-monkeys018.htm
Shagster (or Shaggy, as people call him... me, I just call him Steven) is finally finished his anime parody dub "Orgus Intergalactic Space Crap"!!! For those of you staring at the screen blankly, it's a re-edit, re-voiced, re-casted, re-plotted version of a hoooorible 1980s space anime that we bought at blockbusters for $1. The plot is simple and silly, the dialogue Steven's usual tongue-in-cheek cleverness, the edited sfx and music AWESOME, plucking tunes from Saturday Night Fever, Princess Mononoke, Last Exile and Star Wars to name a few. He did such a good job with this I highly reccommend anyone looking for half an hour of entertainment (yes, 1/2 hr) to download it and check it out. The file's 70 meg, so if you're unsure whether you want to bother downloading, check out the sample clip Steven provided of a particularily ridiculous scene.
Voices done by Steven, me and Selena.
http://voiceactingalliance.com/board/showthread.php?t=10389
It's been an incredible holiday, lots of fun things, plenty of rest, saw a whole bunch of wonderful friends, and spent every day with my family whom I love so very much! So, having my holiday-fill I'm looking forward to starting work again rather than the expected "aaaaw MAN I wish it were still the holidays!" I did get a little emotional on parting with my family who all came to see me off at Union in Toronto... but that was partly the fault of the Narnia soundtrack I was listening to, song #2 brings me to tears every time, it's the score with all the children having to leave WWII London to go live in the country. But, here I am back in my comfortable little appartment and... there are SO MANY THINGS I HAVE TO DO NOW! AUGH!!!
Also, here's the completed Teen Titan illustration I gave to my lil sis for Christmas... she loved it! 
And also another christmas card/water colour attempt. 
Well folks I'm safely back in Mississauga and ready to recharge! I'm soooo very happy to be with my parents and siblings again, and the house looks as awesome as I remember... 7 foot tree assembled soley by my 10 year old sister, garland on the doorways, flickering flames in the fireplace... And so many snacks! Myeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! ^_______^
So, now to sleep after the long but fun trip. Merry Christmas y'all!
KT
Well, Christmas fast approaches and I am sooo excited to go home on friday. Though it doesn't feel very wintery in the appartment at the moment as I'm boooiling with our huge windows and the sunlight, gosh, if our heating was actually working me n' andrea would fry in here! This'll be my last posting for the year, I'm going to give Mike @Pip my computer over the break and he's going to reformat so hopefully all my computer woes will be fixed. this probably means all the pictures I've posted on blogger will vanish, but I'll try uploading a couple again once I get the computer back.
This pinup is one I promised I'd make my pal Shawn a little while ago. I've finally racked out the watercolours! Woo! But dang, now that I look at it her left leg is stupid... why do I never notice these things before cleanup???
Anyhoo, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone!
~ KT
Done and DONE! I've finished Peter's family characature portrait! WOOOOO! The prints turned out awesome (I love my printer, she's such a sexy, sexy beast) and tommorrow I'll try to trudge through the snowy tundra that is Ottawa to get to the post office so I can mail these suckers a.s.a.p.
Seriously though, you see the size of snow clumps blowing around? I live on the 11th floor and those fluffs are as big as eyeballs!
So I feel a lot less stressed, but in need of a HUGE massage *oh Adriana I'm missing you so dearly right this moment!* And now I've only two more illustrations to try and finish before home time... well three if you count the sexy pinup I promised Shawn... maybe four if you count the ninja-tag I promised Tony ... ehehehe... I'LL GET ON IT! YES! But, LATER! First sleep. Or reading in bed, I'm finally reading the biography/picture book of J.W Waterhouse that I picked up this summer at the Ottawa Art Gallary. I love his work, definetly amongst my top 5 favourite artists!
~ KT
Gosh, I've been a shut in for the past week and a bit! There's so much I need to do for Christmas!
Weird recipe: Also, while making my scrambled eggs and mushrooms this morning I decided to be adventurous and add egg nogg to the mix. At first it was enjoyable, nice sweet smell and eggnoggy aftertaste, but towards the middle it just got nasty so I smothered it in HP sauce as usual. *urp*
Anyhoo, I'm gonna try and clean up and colour the last characature before work. Later, my duckies.
This Shrub Monkey was inspired by a phone call with Steven this evening in which while holding the phone beneath his chin I thought he sounded like a fat man. If you can't click on the link (because blogger seems to get antsy with files bigger than a certain size) check it out on my website through the link provided above. Yeah, I think you hafta click on the entry title. There you go.
Man, I must press REALLY hard when drawing with the tablet because my hand always aches after doing one of these.
This is the first part of a commission for Steven's friend Peter, it's a characature of him and his sister up to some shenanagins. My plan is to have commission #2 completed by thursday so I can ship all the prints out by friday.
P.S> As Mr. Barth's already noted, this pic seems to hold some resemblance to me n' Gerry, though I didn't notice til after I posted... hmm... I think I need to work on my characatures so they don't look so generic, but it DOES look like Peter and his sis! If i HAD done a drawing of me and Gerry he'd have his orange hat and I'd be the one holding a sword and chasing him screaming around the castle laughing maniacally to myself... muahaha!!!!
hammina hammina
KT
Today was awesome, lots of fun. Chilled all day with Gerry, we went to Wallaks where I FINALLY picked up a paint pallet for my watercolours I keep promising myself I'm gonna use... someday. Nyeeh. And I went bowling in the evening with Andrea, Justin, Mike, Ray and Tony and it was soooo fun. Though we ended up going all the way to the quebec side for some reason because they "had to have a 10 pin game!!" But it was a lot of fun! I started out strong too, but beginners luk always dies for me after about three throws. *siiigh* The gross thing is I reek of cigarettes from the 3 minutes I spent in the bar pulling out cash. BLAUGH!
On a completely different topic, it's interesting to note that for some reason the "a" "s" "e" and "n" keys on my keyboard are completely gone. Like, what do I keep typing that uses these letters??? "asen"? "esna?" "sane?" ooh, "sane!" hmm... that's kind of creepy....
The gang trying to figure out how to get names for each player... needless to say my team didn't figure it out...
And Mike says donughts are A-OK!
Aww how nice! Todays been a nice relaxing day, and now a brass band is playing Christmas Carols across the street infront of the Salvation Army! I feel so peacefull...............
........now to go oblitorate some tiny white pins with a massive bowling ball!!!!!!!
~KT
Oh yeah! I forgot I South-Park-asized myself! So here's me!............... as a crack whore it would seem................ what the heck was I thinking when I made this!?!?!?
Hey guys, if you haven't checked out Cartoon Brew (http://www.cartoonbrew.com/) lately, go check out their November 30 posting and click on the "The Return of Hand-Drawn Animation" post with the animated eagles. S'great.
Humminahumminahummina I cannot WAIT until Narnia on Saturday! Squeeee!
I like absent minded doodling, just putting the pen to paper and moving it and see what happens. What I draw is usually influenced by the music I'm listening to on the lil pink ipod, if I'm not listening to music then it's anyone's guess what I'm gonna sketch next... usually the guys in my quad. WHOO! "Sheridanc Quad!..... and Marcel!"
Myes.
I suppose I'd better finish off all the rest of the illustrations on my to do list. But first I'd beter do the dishes because they're shutting the water off in our building AGAIN tommorrow. Hope I don't cut myself on that carving knife again... the thing has a taste for my bloooood!
A whole jubilee of sketches, and below is my creepy page!
This is Mister Barth and his extremely proper sitting posture. :P
If you read Hans Bacher's blog you'dve probably checked this out already, but if not you HAFTA check out this film http://www.aantin.com/films/lepapillon.php he has a link to. It's so beautiful!
WHEW! One holiday project DONE! But I can't post it in case prying little eyes see it before Christmas morning, so you're gonna have to try and imagine I made something wonderful and be content. HA!
I'm glad I went out every chance I could during summer and autumn. If I felt guilty about putting projects aside I reasoned I'd just be a shut in during the winter and make up for it. WELL! It's winter now isn't it!? Thanks a LOT KT-of-the-past for making me a shut in!
Here's a page of flash doodles I did rather than working as I shoud've been. 
GRAAH! Christmas is coming and while I'm UBER happy and excited at going home and visiting my loved ones, I'm also ETREEEEMELY stressed as there are maybe 20 days before I leave and I'm still not done with my xmas presents, haven't started my portrait commission yet, am still having net issues and wil probably have to reconfigure my computer, which means starting EVERYTHING from scratch, but I don't want to do that until after I finish all these illustrations I need to do.
*guh!* I also haven't gone to kick boxing in a while, and I have to go find a way to get LUCIA'S DVD back to the Rogers half way across Ottawa! *shakes a loving fist at Lu*
I'm just a wee bit stressed out at the moment, I think I just need to get some sleep and I'll be kokai... "okay"... what the heck did I just type!?!?! 
I went to Everett's screening yesterday (friend from work for any non-Pipstars reading this) and I really enjoyed his film, so campy and fun! It was fun being an extra in it too and I got all big headed and giggly everytime I saw myself on the big screen. Ahhh, my first screen role... "clipboard girl!"
I've added on a couple doodles I had laying around my desk at work for when I need a break from the computer screen. At Pip there's all these extra papers lying around for the purpose of doodling (well, whyever not?) and I enjoy using my priveledges.
I think I'm going to sleep now. I've got a whole cabootle of laundry to do tommorrow. GYEAGH!
Just for you Tony, I did Robin next. So ENOUGH of your wiley ninja tricks! *ducks* Just one more character to go, then I can piece it all together, make a cool abstract BG, and then I'm DONE. Next I'll probably start on the family portrait commissions that Steven's friend asked me to do.
OOOH! Best thing in the world! I keep forgetting my family sent me some left over Halloween treats from Heather's swag! And it's awesome because I always forget I have it just until the point where I muuust have chocolate, then I remember and I have chocolate!
Ahh, life is sweet. But now I'm tired and I wanna get up early-ish tommorrow to go see what the mailman tried to deliver because they ALWAYS SHOW UP WHEN I'M IN THE SHOWER AND CAN'T HEAR THE DOOR! *wheeze wheeze*
Oooh man, I've been watching the Ren and Stimpy dvds Rod leant me like crazy over the past few days (cuz he's leaving soon and I'd better return them before he does). There's some nutty stuff in there I hadn't seen before (i loooved the cowboy/horse theif one and the Powder Toast man short) along with the classics (my favourites that my dad showed me when I was a kid) like Cousin Sven, Space Madness, the Army One... The Happy Helmet... Good whacky fun. I love the style of John K.'s lady characters, I'd love to see more of that kind of thing too.
Uuuuhm... what else. OSAP starts collecting today. Whoo. Aaaand... tommorrow's pay day! *cheers* I suppose I should get to bed PRONTO because I promised myself I'd go to Kick Boxing tommorrow, and I've been such a lazy bastard this past week.
Nite all!
I'm such a huge nerd. I made this with one of those Candy Doll generators, I've attatched the link.
Yeees, it's me as a Hogwarts student, RAVENCLAW ALL THE WAY! And my "familiar" witch pet is my lovely doggy Dusty who sadly passed away in May but I can still happily remember the sound her jingling collar tags made. And the guy beside me? Muahaha, no, it's not Harry, it's ....!
... as I said. I'm a HUGE nerd. Na ha HA!
My neck hurts like a fiend, I suppose it doesn't help that I crack it all the time, but I can't stop myself! I'm getting worried! And WHY OH WHY does my computer hate me so? All I've ever done is given it love and long hours of both verbal and downloading abuse!
Also, I realise I REALLY need to practice cleaning up elipses and drawing realistic fabric...... *sigh*
Now can anyone tell me WHY my right hand collomn of links and such is located at the bottom of the blog and not the top? WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH MY POSSESSED COMPUTER!?!?!??!?!
UGH! So I bugged the fine help-line people at Bell Sympatico once again, and they gave me the internet version of "let's see here... OH MY GOD!" and I'm even more frusterated over my BLOODY STUPID INTERNET! *pant pant* I can't check hotmail, msn, gmail, my bank account, student loans... basically anything with a secure setting. The last help-line guy left off telling me to go to microsoft and update EVERYTHING but when I went to do that the net wouldn't let me open the page properly....
*sigh*
Anyhoo, the drawing above is a sketch I did to give Steven a reason to smile during this work heavy week of his, maybe if I stare at it long enough my net woes will go away too.
Trying to save space on my computer, I backed up everything with the intent of deleting files that weren't too critical, but when I went through the sheridan photos I couldn't delete ANY of them! (they're all backed up on cd but i couldn't take them off my computer). So many memories, I laughed so many times! Ahh, how I miss the good all days. *happy sigh*
OOH! And another thing, *puts on hick voice* mah boy Gerry, wen' 'n got 'imself a bran' new blog. Take a look-see o'er at http://www.gduchemin.blogspot.com/
ta!
This pic's part of a larger illustration I'm working on for a certain special little sister, so MOM AND STEVEN if you're reading this don't show Heather, it's a surprise! Seriously though, the Teen Titans cartoon is soooooo cute.
The weekend's been pretty good, played this awesome fun game called "Cranium" over at Gerry's which is like charades/pictionary/sculpty fun/smart stuff/word-fun, and HILARITY did ensue!
It snowed over the weekend which was nice but it's been raining all evening and the roads and sidewalks are all slick and creepy with ice. We have to walk so carefully, even in my giant boots I almost slipped twice.
Alrighty! That's about it! Cheerio all! Ooh, and my listening reccomendation for the week is Dane Cook: Retaliation, the guy is soooo durn funny!
Hmm, me thinks Blogger doesn't post large files, so if you can't view the Simply Potterific comic (because i tried resizing it but that didn't work either) check it out in the fan comic section of closet-space , or at my deviant art account http://ktshy.deviantart.com
UGH! My internet is SO screwed up. I downloaded an antivirus Mike C. from work told me to find and it scouted out not one but TWO worms. Eww. But I'm still unable to access email! I'm cut off from the world outside Ottawa! AUGH!
Anyhoo, here's a newbie I sketched, inked and coloured tonight. I've been wanting to do a Poisin Ivy drawing for such a long time after reading "the longest halloween" (i think that's what it's called). I just find her to be such a fascinating character, almsot Faerie like in her love of plants but absolute distain for humans. Batman's my favourite superhero. Don't worry, he'll save himself soon enough...
Things that made me smile today: I had a nice long phone call wil Lucia after work. Almost down to only the wick on a beautiful vanilla scented candle that I've lit every night for the past few weeks. Marcel's adorable dog Fredrick almost licked the skin right off my hand, it made me remember my sweet Dusty who passed away last May.
I think Tony may have started a dinner-trend because now I have this overwhelming urge to capture my culinary attempts on film... or digital hoo-haw... whatever a digital camera takes. Pixels! That's it.
First up is the VERY FIRST all-on-my-own dinner I made a couple months back, chicken spaghetti, you may laugh at the simpleness but I was so excited to cut the meat (well, Andrea helped) and boil the noodles all on my own (yes, I've lived a sheltered existance.)
This here is a salmon fillet I made two days ago. Very tasty, I don't even remember what spices are on it (I just added whatever Andrea gave me) and the carrots on top are from her mother's recipe. VERY tasty, though I kind of overcooked it.
It's been 6 months but I'm only now truley realising I love our appartment. I'm slowly adding touches to my room that make me happy which include the pink stars Gerry helped me put up, and the funky quilt I bought at Ikea with Lucia. 
Last of all, yes I have been drawing, just not much more than doodles. But here's another one of my Simply Potterific comics I make to amuse myself and my brother, which are actually pretty popular down at deviant art! Which is a good ol' confidence boost! 
I've been listening to a lot of Iron and Wine lately. I find them so calming. Not that I'm the most stressed out person in the world, but we all have our bad days.
This is the logo I designed for "Silly Kingdom" a hilarious independant radio-play series currently in production. Based in a distant time and land, the core characters are a machiavellian prince, his sweet and innocent sister, a crotchety wizard with a chip on his shoulders against modernised magic tricks, and the court jester who's about the only person in the castle with a brain. Fantastically written (and I'm not just saying this because the writter's my brother) and hosting some very talened actors from the Voice Acting Alliance Forum, I HIGHLY recommend checking it out if you're in the mood for a chuckle. Check it out either here at: http://www.voiceacting.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=7327
Or through our closet-space website.
~ KT SHY
