Cassal di Caelkriss

So, a couple of weeks ago, I popped onto my deviantArt account and saw that they were holding a new art contest.  The new Tim Burton-produced movie, “9,” was being released in theaters on 9-9-09, and the art community site was holding a competition to see who could come up with the most creative “9″-inspired creature.

I’m not a huge Tim Burton fan, but I figured I ought to enter some of these contests to gauge how well I do in the fray of hundreds of artists.  So, I quickly scraped a design together and spent half a day working up the artwork that I would submit.  Here is the result:

I honestly didn’t expect to get very far in the competition, since there were hundreds of submissions and only 25 would even be considered as semi-finalists.  However, just a couple of days ago, I received an email informing me that I was in fact selected to be among the 25.  A pleasant surprise!

So, the final judging is still under way, but I’m just really excited that I was selected as a semi-finalist.  If I do win something, that would be totally cool.  If I don’t, well… either way, I promise to post about it.

Update 9-30-2009

Well, no prize for me on this one.  I wasn’t really expecting one, since I didn’t even expect to make semi-finals.  But it was interesting to see how I’d do.  Next time, I’d like to spend more time conceptualizing the design, and I’d also put more time into the execution of it.  I think what I came up with was alright, but definitely far from being refined.

I have issues with the angle that I chose to represent the design as well as a few other things.  I thought the sketch lacked the proper amount of detail.  The textures helped to hide some of the short comings in that area, but one can’t fully rely on cover-ups when trying to put forward a good conceptual drawing.

A few minutes ago, my stomach was telling me that it was much less than happy.  It was probably just a bit of indigestion or a reaction to the cup of coffee that I had earlier today (I love coffee, but I don’t drink it too regularly anymore).
Either way, I didn’t feel as if it was going to end up very pretty.  So, I started trying to think of home remedies that I had on hand that would help me out.  I found this:

Pickled Ginger:  Ginger is a pretty well recognized remedy for upset stomachs.  But finding a pleasant mode of consuming it isn’t always easy. Pickled ginger (which you should be able find in any Asian supermarket) isn’t as potent as straight ginger, and if you put it in a glass jar in the refrigerator, it’ll keep forever.  So, keep some on hand.

Tea:  I had it with a cup of green tea, which goes really well with the ginger flavor and helps everything settle a little easier.

Anyway, thought I’d share.  It worked great! Yes, I took that picture.

Well, I’m back.  It was a wonderful little trip.  Not without its own adventures, but life would be quite boring otherwise.  Not necessarily less painful, but boring.

Just thought I’d share a couple of shots from the trip.  Enjoy!