Sunday, July 19, 2009

New Sketch blog


Aside from my animation blog I decided to put together a blog to showcase my drawings and so I hope you will take time to look at it and please follow me if you like. There will be more updates in the near future. This is a blog to go with my current website. Drawikecrazy.net

Check it out at http://ariemonroe.blogspot.com/

Monday, June 29, 2009

Bazilion Pictures


Today I started my internship at Bazillion Pictures. it was exciting. I will have to go in early in the morning though cause I am working full time hours at night. I had a good morning. I got to chat a bit with some of the other interns and see what they are doing and learning and it was really great to be in a creative environment again. I am really looking at this as a chance to build my portfolio so I want to do the best I can.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Life Changing Expereince.


I haven't been drawing to much because of work. But I have been reading and looking at different comics I have gotten from the library. The other day I picked up some books about running creative businesses and I can't wait to jump into those.

todays journal s reflective though and less about animation but it all ties in. For a long time I have battled with myself hating myself and my body but in recent years I have been trying to except me for who i am and I realized how deeply it ties into my work as an artist and my ability as an animator.

There was a point in time 4 years about where I almost gave up on trying to even learn animation I had so many things going on in my life and I was so down I was right on the edge of giving up why I became and artist to begin with. I felt fat , ugly, and useless as a person ans as an artist.

Even after running away to school I still have no confidence in any of my work. But it was my chances that I took to go ahead and plunge into a whole different world and a different way of thinking that brought me back . Not only that it was meeting Dan Haskett.

He and his wife both have been more then art mentors but also life mentors. I think the day I sat down to dinner with them for the first time and asking them about themselves and there life and the work they do and then having them ask me the same and not being very confident. and Dan said something to me that turned my whole out look on my art life and around. He said "Arie don't you realize how good you are?"

I had to stop and question myself. Am I really a good artist. But I think the biggest lesson I learned was that no matter how bad I think I am everyone else seems to see something totally different in my and my abilities. I started to question my own thinking in a whole new level and I realized no I am not the best but I am capable of so much more than I give myself credit for.

I started a linkedin account and one of the things I was nervous about doing was asking for recommendations on my page. But I went ahead and did so the other day when I realized that if you apply for jobs through linked in many people require a recommendation. I was reading over them and they are so wonderful. The thoughts people have to offer after having known me and worked with me were very surprising. I wanted to post them here not to brag but to inspire others that are artists and they feel down about there work and abilities cause you never really know what someone might see you that you don't see in yourself cause you are constantly telling yourself how bad you are how incapable you are. For me this is a reminder thatI am not just to hard on myself but I sabatoge myself in every way and all without seeing things from the perspective of the other people in my life:



“She has talent, she has drive, she has determination. Arie has a high sense of ethics, and believes in doing the best possible job. She has strength in handling the female figure. Already she is far ahead in the game, and keeps working to get better. Definitely an asset to any company using cartoon illustration, as she has a deep interest and pride in her cartooning.” June 22, 2009

Dan and Karen Haskett , Owner , Hasketts Unlimited!
was a consultant or contractor to Arie at Drawlikecrazy Studios



“Arie was a pleasure to work with during a hectic project; I highly value her easy going nature and excellent work results.” June 22, 2009

Top qualities: Personable , Good Value , On Time

Mark Irwin
hired Arie as a General Contractor in 2008



“Arie is a very talented cartoonist with a very good sense of how to animate. I would recommend her for a position as an illustrator, animator or character designer.” June 20, 2009

Doug Compton , animator/ director , Karmatoon Co.
was with another company when working with Arie at Drawlikecrazy Studios



“It was an absolute pleasure to work with Arie. She provided just the right mix of style and design to my project.” June 20, 2009

Top qualities: Great Results , Personable , Creative

Lorenzo Lizana
hired Arie as a artist/illustrator in 2004


I think the responce I was most surprised about though all of them I cherish was the one from Mark Irwin because I only really corresponded with him through email. We had no personal conversations, we didn't go to lunch and talk about comics over beer and pizza. But he still had something good to say. And even more importantly he actually responded. I didn't think he would take the time out of his busy schedule for that and he did.

So here is what I want to say to any aspiring animator artist etc out there. No matter how bad you thing you are or how far you have to go to get better have confidence in your work and outwardly express it to all those that are interested.

If there is one thing in my career that has seriously hurt me and set me back it was my own self loathing and inability to be confident about my work and myself. Fear sets in cause you think you aren't good enough and you don't push yourself to do more that what you are doing cause you are worried others won't except you cause you don't except yourself. As result you have to work that much harder to prove yourself cause you have to prove yourself to 2 people, yourself and your client

Anyway I gotta get to work I hope you find this educational cause it took me 30 years to recognize that I have been beating up onmyself and just being mean to Arie. I treat myself worse than anyone else I know. I wouldn't want to be my friend if I talk to friends the way I talk to me.

~Love Arie

Keep drawing. 99% practice and 1% theory.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

New favorite past time.



My new favorite past time seems to be looking for a job in animation. I am currently working at a place that does in home care as a direct care assistant. Basically I help people who are disabled so they can live out a normal life but they need round the close care.

Anyway, it can be very stressful honestly cause I work with all men and I don't mean just the clients. I mean the other co workers as well and things have been hard. I think my immune system is at an all time low cause I ended up getting really sick over the past week. I haven't been sick in over a year.

One issue I was dealing with was sexual harassment. Finally the guy bushed me to my limit and I blew up on him and he stopped. But there seems to have been some left over resentment. I to this day really don't like him and hate having to work with him every day. We barely say hello ti each other. I started doing comic strips about it to helpme look at the situation from a funny side of things.

I had not had a day off until this weekend. it has been almost a month since my last day off which was on the may 24th. I got labor day weekend off and then worked a double shift that next day (16 hrs.) so I have worked about 4 weeks doing both double and single shifts with no days off up to this point plus I have been working my ass off in the gym trying to get back in shape in the mornings. this past week I have felt like shit all week and now I get a day off to be sick. It really is crazy.

I know I need a job and want money but I just don't feel like it is work it for me to be so stressed I get sick cause of it. I have no time for a social life and lets just for get doing commissions. on days like this the last thing I want to think about is sitting at a drawing desk all day drawing stuff for other people when I don't feel well.

Anyway enjoy the comic strip. I think i will go take a nap.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Some sketches



I figure since I can't animate right now due to my full time job I will try to keep things active here and post some sketches.

I will be getting some animation experience soon though cause I am starting an internship at a company here in Kansas City called Bazillion Pictures. They are letting me come in and train as a 3d character animator. Plus I might get to do some character design work for them. It will be an exciting experience I think. So Wish me luck.

I am also working on a new card set for the character mandy by dean Yeagle.




I love deans work and am excited. We had to submit some samples for this so I sent this in.


I also did some sketch cards for Ritten House Marvel Archives set. the job I am working though is so time consuming though that I had to fight to get days off to work on it and I still didn't finish the set. I am definitely going to have to quit soon if I want to get back to drawing and stuff. I would post that stuff but I can't show anything until the set comes out. I did 36 cards out of the 50 I was trying to finish and I had 100 total but they told me to do what ever I could.

The check I got came in handy though cause I was expecting everything to get rejected but it didn't so I am happy. My friends tell me I am just way to hard on myself when it comes to my own work.

I did recently come across an artist whos work I love! his name is Bill pressing you should check out his blog called Daily Peril.

I find his work very inspirational and I love his approach to using the dr martin dyes and acrylic wash. I was planning to experiment with the technique when I work on my next set of commissions and stuff but I again have not been getting any days off work to work on my own projects.
So as soon as things start comng together and I can sit down I will be knocking out a crap load of hopfully amazing looking commissions. I want the people waiting to feel like it was well worth the wait lol. Of course When I say amazing I take that lightly myself cause I can only really enjoy a peice of my own art for maybe a few days after I do it. After that it just becomes a reminder of all my mistakes.

Anyway as promised here is some new sketches. One is inspired by Dean Yeagle and it is my Character Amber. Enjoy guys.

~Arie




Saturday, June 13, 2009

New links

I sent these links to a friend and thought I would post them here for myself as well feel free to view. Also here is a little comic I did on sexual harassment.



I put up with this crap for about 2.5 months before I got it to end abruptly. Anyway, it was bugging me so I turned it into a comic to make it funny. There are more I will post them later.


http://www.awn.com/

http://animationpodcast.com/


http://www.animationnation.com/

http://theartofglenkeane.blogspot.com/2006/07/rapunzel.html


http://erwinmadrid.blogspot.com/

http://imaginismstudios.blogspot.com/

http://davidcolman.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_archive.html


http://www.animatedbuzz.com/


This last link is really important to me cause Dan in my mentor and I can't believe I was not able to go to this event in NYC at SVA when it happened. I am in Missouri right now and I just had no way of going so it couldn't be helped. Tiana is a friend of mine. Thanks for posting this Tiana.

http://tianamscott.blogspot.com/2009/03/dan-haskett-for-this-past-week-030909.html#comment-form