Just a quick update, added some character concepts for a game project which has kind of stalled to the sketches page. I hope we can restart it down the line, this would be fun to work on more. I started with a deformed character base, and tried to come up with some alternative costumes, each with a different feel - I had so many ideas too.
March update
Well its been awhile, man I'm bad at keeping this updated - OK New promise, do SOMETHING here at least once a week. A blog post, a Reyanimated (Oh I'm calling my comic thing Reyanimated now btw) a sketch, or a few more completed works that I'm actually happy with, something to make this more alive, more active. I've actually been working on a few things I'm not really allowed to show until they are released, hence the reason for the silence, but I've really been pushing a bunch of new ideas lately, and this week I can start to show a few things off. I've got some rather ambitious plans for the future, and it all starts right here.
I've also been wondering what I should do with the animation / showreel part of my work, do I show it off here? I've been thinking it would be better served as a separate site with its own identity...I don't want to spread the focus and purpose of this site too thin.
Anyway, heres some sketches and works in progress!
CONTENT!
Test aftermath
Todays comic:
I brought a Kanji to a Vocab fight
Well I did my test, gave it all I had, and now I wait for the results...which will be released in March. Bloody hell that's a bit much, it'll nearly be time for the next test by that point...anyway, I'm pretty confident I missed out this time, but I DID learn a lot. 2 months wasn't enough, but I have more months to play with now before I dive back in. But I'm going to try to get back to doing updates here, I've been working on something for a game company, Ill see if its OK with them if I post some of my sketches and concepts here, pretty proud of it and hope to show it off soon.
For this latest webcomic, I tried a few new things - normally I try to do these on my tablet, so I can work on them anywhere at anytime I get an idea, also I love to work in a cafe in the sun. My program of choice has always been Procreate on my iPad, an app that is amazing and powerful and as good as any desktop painting app - the problem being that it has evolved so much since I started using it and its added so many features that my old iPad 2 cant really handle it anymore, I'm going to upgrade to an air pretty soon, but until then I've been trying out a few other programs trying to find a decent alternative. I painted this latest webcomic using Brushes, an interesting app, fun to use, and runs a lot smoother. Its strange jumping into a new app after getting used to one, its like trying to write with the opposite hand you're used to, you know the mechanics of it but it just doesn't work like it should. I need to play with this app a bit more, wrap my head around it. Ill be back with something Christmassy shortly!
Oy, wheres the updates, old man?
I had originally intended to upload way more content, and keep up with my webcomic, but something pretty big has taken up a lot of my attention and time lately - I have registered for the JLPT exam in December. The JLPT, Japanese Language Proficiency Test is a test of basic Japanese ability. There are 5 levels, 1 being the best, and I'm going for level 4. This is frankly aiming a bit higher than I should, and as such, I'm scrambling to make sure I know what I need. I'm studying like I haven't had to since High-school, my various creative qualifications relying on project work rather than exams. The most intimidating thing is the Kanji - each character not only has a unique meaning, but a unique stroke order - you have to draw in each line in the right order, otherwise it just doesn't come out right, and it shouldn't make a difference but it really does. Each character can also have 2 - 5 different pronunciations that can change the meaning, and different characters can have the same pronunciation that you can only distinguish in context. I need a couple of hundred of these for this exam, I may very well die trying to get it all down. To that end, my webcomic updates will be throttled back to 1 per week for awhile, and Ill probably have to wait till after the test to finish the work I wanted to throw up here, it will be worth the wait though, I promise! Ive illustrated this struggle with this weeks webcomic which you can find here:
http://reycastillo.com/webcomic/2013/10/22/i-havent-studied-like-this-in-years
And now back to work I think.
The day of Birth
Today is my Birthday! My 30th birthday in fact, the one you really dread. Or I did anyway. 30 always seemed to be the final stop on the youth train. The Being young service on platform 1 terminates here. Please do not board this train. But what can you do hey, thats the nature of time and the short lives we are blessed with. Im lucky enough to be sitting in the sun at a cafe, drawing and being all reflective and philosophical (as per my own personal birthday tradition) and honestly, whether I think of myself as young or old, life is good. I have great people around me, my fitness is better than its ever been, as is my artistic ability, and my Japanese too. Im working on some really cool things Ill post about in the fullness of time when Im done, and Im finally getting on top of a lot of things Ive left unfinished or even unstarted for far too long. If this is what being old is really like, maybe there was nothing to worry about after all. Happy Birthday to me! Now heres a quick sketch I did just now (Im trying out different poses for this character, trying to find something interesting that works the way Id like, not there yet but I like it anyway) And a photo of the birthday cupcake I just had. True story.
