Glimpses into Fantasies

My apologies for going on a rant about my love life previously.
This week has been eventful; I went to three dances last weekend, and let me tell you, it kind of messed up my biological clock--but I did get some benefits out of it. And on that note, I was also set apart as the Family History Consultant for my apartment this week! I should've figured that would happen to me sooner or later...
So, how's my day? Eventful, that's for sure; I woke up this morning with only half an hour before my first class and, after the necessary preparations, managed to arrive on time with about five or so minutes to spare (better than yesterday; I had only fifteen minutes before first period when I woke up. It was a good idea to shower the night before), but after that, things went swimmingly for the next few hours. My psychology class was odd; to learn about operant conditioning, we had to train a baby chick to peck at a red dot. I've got to say, the little birds were cute, but that's the last time I work with chickens.
This evening I attended a seminar--type thingy for a Disney College Program. I'm really leaning towards that, but I'm going to talk to this guy here at BYU-I to get a good idea of whether or not it would be a good idea for me to apply. If I do, I won't be able to apply for an animation class/program (for another year, anyway), but I might as well shoot for a character performance gig (total anonymity. That would be awesome).
So, enough blabbing on about my life, I bet you wanted to see some new art, huh? I'm going to be straightforward; I've been running a little dry as far as new ideas for sketches are concerned--which sucks, considering I've started new sketchbook. I guess it's a sort of "in the moment" thing, huh?

 This one made my mom proud when she saw it; seriously, she posted it on Facebook, saying "Look what my boy can do!" It kind of makes me feel like a little kid again. I came up with the concept back in the mission and even did a little rough sketch of the idea. Fortunately I managed to save it, and I was able to pick it back up when I got home. What makes this one especially cool is how I got to use markers with varied sizes of pens to fill in certain details; I couldn't have done a lot of this with your typical sharpie pen. I'm trying to get around to coloring this on Photoshop here on campus.
Anyway, I think this would be a cool cover for a new edition of "Alice in Wonderland"; she comes back out of the rabbit hole with all of her weird experiences, and with the key invites the viewer to share the adventure.

 This one I completed back on the mission. If you look closely (and also depending on whether you're a good art history student or not), you can see quite a few references to Salvador Dali, one of my favorite artists. I also threw in a subtle reference to Douglas Adams, if anyone cares.

 This seemed like a real fun idea at the time, following a group of boys as they go hunting for giants, not realizing that what they're looking for is right under their noses--literally. Looking at this, I could've gone into detail way more, especially on the trees, and make the place a real old growth forest.

 This one's had a bit of a mixed history; I originally set out to go with one background, but then I realized that wouldn't have worked out, and so I went in another direction, but the core characters remained the same.
I hope you guys get some sense of irony from this piece. Just go into serious analysis mode, and see what I mean.

 As you can see from the note, this was done as a birthday gift for a good friend that was away in Germany at the time. I got the idea for it after listening to Katy Perry's "Firework" song, and just wanted to put into ink and colored pencil the emotions that were being expressed.

And now, for the first time ever, a sneak peak at one of the pages of my upcoming children's book!

  And that's all your going to get. Have a good week!

Love can be a $(#*!

I don't usually put personal stuff like this on the blog, but for some reason, tonight I felt like it:
You know, I was actually there when the First Presidency announced the lowering of missionary ages to 18 for men and 19 for women. Quite literally; I was getting close towards the end of my mission in the Family & Church History Headquarters Mission in Salt Lake City. I remember my reaction, and in the ensuing weeks I discussed this with my fellow elders who were also nearing the end of their missions. We all, to some degree, expressed concern over the fact that we could be dealing with a whole bunch of rowdy 18 year-olds, which would make things difficult for trainers and zone leaders alike--but then we all had a good laugh as we declared, "Not our problem!"
Over a year has gone by, and now I'm starting to realize that it really is my problem, but in a different way.
Don't get me wrong, I think that it's a great thing that the Lord is trusting people of a younger age to leave on missions, but that makes things difficult here at BYU-I, an entirely LDS college. Since young women are allowed to go on missions sooner, a lot of them have been taking advantage of that, which puts me, a young RM, in a tough spot. The pressure's on for me to get dating and eventually get dating; how am I supposed to do that when part of the girls around my age are practically packing their bags? It's bad enough that a good majority of the girl's I'd be interested in are already paired up with some guy; my current roommate has a girlfriend back in Canada, and they talk over Skype all the time (I swear I'm not kidding!)!
This fact hit hard tonight; I went to this country dance, and while there I met this really cute redhead girl. She was really friendly, and quite energetic; lucky yours truly managed to get in two dances with her! I tried to get her number, but then she told me that she was putting in her papers, and didn't feel that it would be fair for her to date someone prior to that. I don't blame her; I already know some guys who got 'Dear-Johned' on their missions (even I was indirectly dear-johned on my mission, but that's another story); how bad would it be for a girl to get that kind of treatment?
I am in no way trying to be desperate and plea for help; I realize there's plenty of fish in the sea, but I just couldn't help but voice my frustration. If you bothered to read this long rant, then you get some points.

New Art, New Sketchbook!

I've officially started on a new personal sketchbook today. I'll admit that it's kind of bittersweet, given how I don't have much art to show anyone in person, but it's nice to have a fresh start.
On that note, how about some art from my recently completed sketchbook (which, by the way, took me over a year to finish. Wow.)?

With 'Little Giant', I decided to do some contrast in terms of size. It's kind of similar to another sketch that I did previously, which I will post pretty darn soon.

In psychology, there's a major question over human consciousness; individually we know we're human beings, but how do we know that the people around us think like we do? How do we know that they're not in fact a really well programmed android? I had already thought about this question in regards to a sci-fi short story, but the question was intriguing enough to put into art form. Hence the title,
"Will the Real Human Please Stand?"
(P.S. The guy in the front right was supposed to have red eyes too. I don't know how they turned brown in the scanner.)

 "Checkerboard Woman" is the follow up to "Beneath the surface". I originally set out to do her hair in rainbow colors, but I figured that would make the piece way too busy, so I went with reddish orange hair instead.