smoof

so this is page 1 of a new short story im doing... werd

My Computer and art are alive today.

well I am trying to come up with whatever biger body of work it is that I should be producing for graduate school the trick is to have a cohesive, yet open tangible idea. Something thought out- and professional- but still having the spark that students tend to lose. novelty with avant garde professionalism is the ideal graduate portfolio (this can be faked...and often is by a shit-load of people... I'm looking at you graphic designers...wink)

anyways, here is a shot of the first image that i did while here in Italy. It is fun stuff, and was kind of a very experimental piece, in that I wasn't sure what the characters should be, or should be doing, or why I even have him in the image. You have to put pencil and ink to paper eventually though, and so this was created in the spirit that I should just get something completed. It has a great effect in-person and the scale lends well to it.

SO, in addition I got my computer finally up again (the radio-shack surge protector burnt out my power-supply) and so I can finally show you all my studio.

I think that over the months that I was working on Justincoombsart.com I kind of found myself reminiscing about the days of old art-for-fun. It seems that we often become branded by our teachers or cohorts and this makes you follow a specific function- but I would more like to reset back to the days of old- and make art for arts sake- this mainly means that I wanna retract those parts of my work that are following some outside influence- and try and find the source of why I really started doing all this.

I ramble... but it is for my own purposes to define what I have been spending these days in Castiglion Fiorentino doing. I am nebulous but I think I can find a central element to run with.

Italy... ugh

While life here has definitely improved (I am working significantly less than I was the first two weeks), my laptop's power adaptor has burnt out. I believe it was the piece of shit radio-schack voltage converter that I had it going through- but regardless my mac is down, and so I have not had the ability to update this blog until i can get my camera working with this PC... which is in Italian so it isn't easy. Anyways, Wednesday I should have a new power adaptor, so the updates will ocne again start being regular.

I have some great updates, starting with a few larger comic-style pieces and the announcement of a new comicbook im doing for fun. should be a hoot (im gonna have to make room for a new button on Justincoombsart.com which btw is getting a lot of good reviews from most people that I show it to.

SAMOOOOOOOOF

ITS ALIVE!

justincoombsart.com

go now,

it doesnt all work... I am missing my design photos so I dont have links functional, but it is damned close- and 90% is there.

jesus its beena long time, I am already excited to add to it. and im sorry if you have as bad a conneciton as I, it will take a bit

back from the dead

well here are the pieces I have done in Italy over the brief period I haven't been washing dishes in the kitchen. The job sucks, but I am finding time to get stuff done, nonetheless.

SNEERF

and as usual, I am taking longer than anticipated with JustinCoombsArt.com v.3

but for now here are a couple new things. mostly testing new media.

IM BACK!

Hey everyone- I am now back in the groove. I have arrived in Italy, from my hiatus in America and am getting to work immediately. I will have my revised website up very very soon. stay tuned this week for it.

Super Adjustment Mode

I am still alive, I will have a post very soon- thanks for keeping reading! woot woot

SEE YA!

off to america!

Photoshop is a beast

http://www.justincoombsart.com/home/comic.html

this file has about 300 or so layers. Yet it is at a very low resolution (675 x 900). When I run it on my macbook pro is feels like a 10 year old computer. It is amazing how these files can make a brand-new computer bog down like it is crying. It is positively frustrating waiting for everything. There are ways to work around huge files- one way is to do it in pieces. So you have a 100 layer piece to the pie- and you flatten- and convert it to a .jpg- then you import that image and work on another piece of the pie (because a flattened .jpg file consumes very little, instead of the 100-later beast it is representing). But you eventually have to slice it, compile it, and animate the gifs- these all have to be done at full-res with all layers activated. It is truly frustrating waiting 5-10 minutes every save-state. perhaps it is time to upgrade to 2gb of memory?

anyways, with frustrations aside I am happy with the final product, and these will hopefully all be compiled- and activated/uploaded within the next month and ill have a new justincoombsart.com version 3. YAY!

Doing art while leaving a country..

it doesn't work very well- but I haven't been doing nothing.

Justin Coombs Art continues to progress, I am super-excited once this thing launches, and is all put together, but it is a beast, so I will continue to trudge on it. I have about 2 more full- design pages to do, and then I should be good to go- WOOT,

Another last-step will be ensuring the pages match color- across the whole website- I want the lighting to be similar, etc.

and heres is a random dude running with a gun as well...

POTTER 5

just wanted to get this up before I go out.

gonna see harry potter 5.
woot

im trying to wind down justincoombsart.com as well.

smoi blavin!

yay a new page of the 5- things are starting to heat up- snerp!

they are fun to do when I can sit down and do em. It is a balance between everything and drawing. Drawing is what I want to do, so naturally it should take up a lot of my time- so I am always trying to draw more and more. But it works sometimes, and doesn't... its a struggle.

Another 5

Woot,

Letting go of being super tight is always great. Sometimes it can be destructive, but I think that in this situation It turned for the best.

I threw together a little cartoon (one second worth...) for a little side-project as well. super lame, but still something different to do. imagine telling avant-garde artists to animate something useful.

THE NEVER ENDING STORY


well not much has been happening. I was gone all last weekend, and kind of got sidetracked these last two days with random happenings related to moving back to America.

hopefully tomorrow night will be productive. At this point I am hoping to get one or two more Large-format ink posters done, Another couple pages of the 5 and hopefully another piece of the never-ending story that is justincoombsart.com

GO NOW

http://www.justincoombsart.com/home/design.html

go to it and love thy design!

Must... Finish... Webpage!

here is 25 hours of design work.

ew.

but it is badass.

basically I get off of work, check my blogs,websites,play nintendo DS for an hour. Munch on food for 30 min and clean a little, jog for an hour, and eat dinner. then I work on art for 2-3 hours.

It is hard when you spend your time doing it- but your day-job gets in the way. Although I have 6 days off coming up, perhaps I can use em to get some seirous work done.

I still need ot get another wall-sized comic picture done. Work on The 5, and also do concept work for a new comic my brother and I are working on. All while still getting Justin Coombs Art up. That is my life right now- but this only happens about 3-4 nights a week. The rest kind of gets lost between other stuff.

so 12-15 hours of work on art a week. not enough. not enough.

*also just added the sketch work for this new comic. just a cool dude.

SNERF

I AM 25 TODAY!

yeesh.

well here is the finished d-day invasion poster/drawing. Very cool indeed- the thing looks great in real life- so to give it justice I composed a big picture from 3 images. It isn't as clean as the real thing- but darn close.

Justincoombsart.com is becoming a pet project. it is taking a good bit of work- but I love doing photoshop work. It feels good to do some graphic design.

Well these two pieces both took me 2 weeks. Thats isnt enough. I need to simply work more than I have been. WERD.

Art vs. College art

So yeah.

Well what is this disparity between commercial viability of artwork and academic interest.

Colleges like wierd, obtuse, bizarre, and avante garde.

People like pretty, fun, cool, amazing etc.

Finding an overlap is the ideal- but the work I look at on university websites would indicate they prefer the more avante than the art for the masses.

So if I want to go to school at some point I am going to have to make avante-garde artwork. This involves putting more thought into ideas and trying to say something on a topic. And it isnt necessarily that I can use this ink-style to cater to that objective. I would be bending my style to cater my message- and hopefully not vise versa. But either way I feel that comic-style art isnt that great for college applications.

Sadly.

so I will prolly end up having to make some artwork that is less-mass appeal.

ugh.

well still cranking a little on this piece. It has been one of those weeks that not as much as id like gets done. But here is the D-day. I should be finished with this thing by sunday and I think I will start a WW1 poster next in similar fashion. Werd.

WAR!

Well I am liking how this piece is going so far. The subject material is all pretty familiar so I am moving on this thing pretty good. I have really only been inking it two hours and it is already about half done or so. (then again that is how ti always starts.. prolly 1/4 done)

But it is a cool piece so I am definitely gonna work on it as much as possible. for refreshment sake:

The 5: currently on pause until i finish this piece.
Website: much the same, altho I do peep in on it a little more
Journals: Started a way cool on- will have pics soon
Paintings: nonexistent- the big problem right now. I am going to start a painting a day tonight if I can. 30 min quick paintings. werd.