Ok... So here I am on a job hunt and not accepted into the school programme I wanted to be in. Well, I will have that portfolio looked after soon enough, but a job hunt... Well moving here was my choice so no complaining!!! However I did not apply to that call for male models to have their faces filmed while orgasming. Writing cover letters was never fun, but I do prefer email over getting resumes printed because of convenience and cost. A quick internet search also feels like fishing in the right spot to begin with. So far most jobs I have applied for have been in North Vancouver, but it is almost as quick to go into downtown Vancouver as it is to go the more remote parts of North Van. I kinda live out in the boonies anyway.

I took a week off as I have not had time off in a while. It was a small holiday of sorts and I slept more than explored. Not racing from downtown Vancouver to catch that bloody ferry and be home in four hours really appeals to me. Funny how I never took the bull by the horns and moved sooner. The other day I took a meandering tour of Kitsilano but somehow did not come across Plögers delicatessen, which will rectifies soon enough. One of the things I moved across the water for was multiculturalism. I have already gone for a kosher meal and got to watch my friend indulge in what she calls stereotypical Jewish family infighting with her sister... Does she realise that her faith and my faith have another thing in common??? Catholic family in fighting is quite similar!!! well the Catholic church did evolve out of Judaism!!! Like father like son!!! Now to get my Chinese Canadian friends into gear.

So there was some planning on my part in case of a total disaster. Things actually went really well and it was one of the smoothest moves I have ever done. I had offloaded a quarter of my junk and my furniture, because it did not need to go across the water. Everything fit into my best friend's van and we were off. I even bodypainted a really hot roller derby chick mere hours before we loaded the van. Little wonder why Nina Hagen's My Way reminds my friend of me!!! Maybe twenty minutes to load and unload the van... Like I said it went well. I bought a two zone pass for over here so that I am mobile for most of the Mainland. I especially love counting languages on the transit. Although hearing German does make me miss A... An meinem Mutters Geburtstag fliegt sie nach Deutschland zurück... Schade, bin traurig...

So my first painting over here as a resident went... I'll leave it alone. I have a big contest tomorrow!!!

The last day at work was alright. I only heard Avril Lavigne's prostate torturing music once. Hmmm, nobody else will have DTH blaring from the training computer like I did... Let us not forget Rammstein too!!! And Nena and Sisters of Mercy!!! I got a good reference from the boss as he got reliability out of me.

Well that's it for now.
Cheers

On my last trip to the mainland from Nanaimo I made a stop where I was supposed to transfer and the bus that came 15 minutes later. After fourteen and a half years of madly buzzing past Park Royal Mall in West Van, I finally stopped in just to look. Interesting that I was on my way to an open house at Capilano University when I took a small break. On the prior visit I did some wandering around in downtown North Vancouver. Hmmm, the Opus art supply store is more or less across the street from a German restaurant that does not serve Weissbier... I serious wonder how much I miss when I am zipping around headless...

Sigh. On with the show. In spite of dashing frantically to catch a boat and leaving half my work behind, my portfolio is way more on the right track than it was before. Yet another reason to vacate Nanaimo!!! The tutoring that I have been receiving has definitely been paying off as I can now see through a drawing to find out how it was made. I was also given tips and reference links to some of the best drawing texts. The toys that they have in the animation are instant drool too!!! I raced back for a friend's birthday, and planned the exploring I'll do then...

I am going to like North Vancouver I think!!!

April 2nd is my deadline for submission,so I kinda gotta needta have my act together on this one. So far I have had five successful sessions with a tutor for my drawing as I want this to go somewhere. In March I will start my search for a new residence as I have actually lived in the same place for six and a half years. The truth is that I am moving cities. It only half seems real, but I still must see it through. I must admit though that family might actually be within easy reach again, and that could be a mixed blessing. Not much furniture will come with the move either.

All this portfolio business, and my drawing is getting looked at again on Saturday at the school I plan on attending. Interestingly enough I have moved away from sketchbooks to loose pieces of computer paper on a see through clipboard. This facilitates trace overs, clean ups and inking. My approach to gesture drawing has recently changed too. Now doing it in quick squiggles and putting the collages on hold. I have been receiving instruction in character design too.

The bodypainting is well... good and bad. I think I should distance myself from an unstable model as the last job with her involved dealing with stalkers. Thankfully the photographer dealt with it, and the shoot was finished. I do not normally like to copy other's creations, but I did pull off a borg from Star Trek with a different model. She is a die hard scifi geek, so talking her into be painted as a borg was a very low maintenance plan!!! I finally got a couple of Photoshop lessons and pulled some 3D constructions made in Blender into Photoshop and... 

Hmmm, I always like to start measuring the new year from Chinese New Years instead of western new years. This year has many changes planned as come hell or high water, I am going back to school. I have even started to get my drawing tutored as I really want into this so bad I can taste it. There are definitely some bad habits I have picked up as well as some things I have forgotten... Yikes!!! The tutor is a really nice fellow from the Netherlands with ca. 30 years experience with commercial art... Those who know me know how I am about Eurostyle too!!! :)  The next openhouse is on the 11th of February, and I have a different approach to getting my portfolio looked this time. Wish me luck!!!

Attention, this is not an angry post!!!
That being said while I am working up to go back to school, two total eurobabe friends of mine have either finished up or are nearly there with their masters degrees. Let us please congratulate J (K) on becoming a Diplom Ingenieurin!!! Let us cross our fingers (Beide Daumen drücken) for A, as she has submitted, but at the last communication had yet to defend her thesis. Over the last year I have had to reestablish friendships with these sort of people and build new ones. One the models at the last bodypainting competition I participated in has her M.Sc. in computer science, and one of the artists is a veterinarian. I wonder what she thinks of being called a Tierärtztin??? Truth is that I need to push myself into this career in order to make these types far less fleeting in my life, so back to school!!!

As far as prep for animation school is concerned I recently went to an open house at Capilano University to see what the school offers. It wound up being a very good decision on my part to go there as my portfolio was lacking necessary material. For starters I should leave out the rendered work except maybe the odd character design. They do want lots of life drawing and what they call cafe drawing, which is drawing random events right in front of me. I also need to loosen up my drawing style as I tend to over structure my drawings. I got to look at sample portfolios of those who made it in and graduated. Adapting to this style should be easy enough as I have already changed my paradigm towards drawing once already, so adapting becomes a case of just do it. The head of the animation department made it quite clear that they were looking for those who can adapt their style. I kept quiet and waited my turn to speak. I am glad that I have outgrown the urge to grovel, argue and offer drawing advice after having been rejected from entering the programme. No doubt there was a time I would have been among those ranks. The facilities themselves made me feel like a kid in a candy store and only made me too excited to try this out. 

Hmmm, Cory Keys Diplom Trickfilmkünstler???

Thank you Google Chrome for all the little red correction lines.



‎''Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.'' ~William Gibson


Nothing like a nagging little bit of baggage :( A petty grudge when person of grudge is effectively out of my life. To the best of my knowlege the person of grudge still lives very close to my work. I quoted, "I am bipolar, and been med-free for fourteen years" as a boundary to this person. Said person has even acted guilty as hell in my presence since...


So why the grudge??? Because I never got to call bullshit...


The people I will gravitate towards when I am in a bad state.



The event that lead to the grudge and the boundary being quoted happened in early Oct 2010 was looking after her place when she was evicting tennants from hell while she went camping with her father. Piece of cake!!!  I'd done this crap before, but what took the cake was the whole "my boyfriend will protect you. He is a Hell's Angel"... Ok, how can I think of you as anything but a thug's whore??? Well that lead to the ADR policy, which meant that anyone lacking integrity was promptly walked away from. I was mostly hurt by women at this point, so if you speak German you may be able figure out what ADR means. Thankfully most of the D reconciled with me and learned that making a D of themselves alienates more than this crazy person. Therefore they are no longer under the label D. Besides if I can talk way sexy women into getting their kit off and allowing me to smear paint all over their bodies... Then to hell with those D types!!! 

Enough of that crap, As one door has gone from open to ajar another has opened. It's a possible graphic novel project with a talented writer. 

So now I sit here testing out the new pencils I bought from the Opus near Gastown last weekend. Nobody seems to stock the blessed things in Nanaimo. What makes them so special is that they are colerase, which is short for colour erasable. They are more like regular pencils than pencil crayons for feel and texture. I noticed right from the beginning that they were not like my Faber-Castells as cheap pencil crayons are closer in feeling to those than the colerase pencils. Animators use the colerase pencils because of the need to colour code (construction, motion and outlines) and make corrections. I feel like day by day I am better prepared for animation school. Next I will be looking into paper used and acting methodology!!!

On the bodypainting front: My last four paintings have been phenomenal with muscle effects, textures and bold contrasts. Working with the body's natural shapes is just the way to go. An interesting development is that the semi pro model whom I may end up working with for two competitions coming up informed me of her anxiety disorder. She also clued in right away that I am bipolar. Well let's not set eachother off... Truth is I just make sure that I am reliable, respect her boundaries and  take her with a grain of salt as she wears it on her sleeve. Another painting was interrupted by the model (different one) getting furious and running off to make sure her boyfriend was not setting up a tryst!!! Nothing like a small (150-155), cute-very, strong and full of fury. Needless to say the painting got done, but if you want to see, I'll resend in a private email. The little furious one was painted with a cake paint instead of a bottle paint. I may switch to the cakes as they are more bang for the buck and easier to control.

I am planning another trip to Vancouver not this coming weekend, but next weekend... I am debating inviting a friend plus a guest for coffee before she moves very far away...

One year has gone by since I stopped working graveyards and have lived in human hours again. A few friendships have changed forever and a few are gone. This is how life works. The recovery took about four months, but I still have baggage from it. The main thing is that I actually have a game plan for the next couple of years. I knew I was officially done with the bad streak after that bender in Toronto when I went bar hopping with the beautiful R only to be woken up the next morning by my dad calling me while we were snuggled up together and sleeping. Something about a night like that with waffles like that the next morning to boot. Getting the angelic Ms. A back into my life was another story, but the weekly love letters helped. One thing at a time though, we haven't talked about that flat in Munich in a long time!!!

Soon I will buy a term deposit so that I have money when I start school in 2012. One thing that is for certain is that I have been on my best creative streak in a long time. The animation guru who talked me into it even tattooed Einstuerzende Neubauten's logo on his leg!!! Bodypainting finally got going for this year and I blew myself away with the piece I did the other night. Thankfully I off-loaded my baggage from that and can concentrate on the art while being professional about it!!! Walking from potentially toxic/ toxic models has become second nature!!! The muscle chart I bought turned out to be an investment. Here is a Livejournal safe picture...

In preparation for my application to Capilano's animation programme next year I have started drawing again. Sofar it is all stuff from my overactive imagination, but kept suitable for family viewing as it is my portfolio and I should be able to show it to anyone. All drawings sofar have been done using Faber-Castell pencil crayons, but other media will follow. Some drawings have been left unfinished in order to show the creative process as I take care to construct each drawing. Nothing is copied or traced!!!