Sai's Asylum » Updates

Art – Mountain Elf

Sai — Sat, 01 May 2010 04:39:04 +0000

So this is no particular character, I just wanted to finalize the design for this variety of elf. The costume was inspired by Thai hill tribes like the Akha people, and… a John Galliano fashion show.

The creative process is weird sometimes.

Art – Terith

Sai — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 00:08:50 +0000

Art – Desert Elf

Sai — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 06:10:27 +0000

There I go trying to get even the fraction of the texture of traditional art in digital again.

Elves? You Bet.

Sai — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:45:24 +0000

Improvement Meme!

Sai — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:47:19 +0000

Since it’s a new year, and a new decade, there’s been a new meme floating around old deviantART. It’s the only one I’ve ever taken part in because it looked pretty fun. I encourage any artist out there to do one, makes you feel a bit better about yourself ;P

Making Comics With Scott McCloud

Updates Galore!

Sai — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 02:52:22 +0000

Hello, my duckies! Sai here, and have I got updates. Well first of all my one-shot comic Mage Knights is available to buy on Indy Planet now. It’s only $2.99 and it’s a fantasy.. magical boy.. comedy… well just go buy it and find out!

Second of all I’ve improved the site’s layout somewhat and added more to the art galleries. I really like NextGen gallery, I can just plug images, albums and whole galleries anywhere in the site. Like so:

[View with PicLens]

Look how many pictures there are in the sketchbook gallery now! So head into the art galleries and see what’s new.

You may have noticed I haven’t really gotten comics back up yet. Well NextGen isn’t really structured well for displaying comics. Not that my old Aniga gallery really was either, but it was at least better than this. I wonder which comics I should even put up when I finally do find a good way to do so, I mean some of them are really reeaaally old. Thoughts, anyone?

Sketch Dump 11.2.09

Sai — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:08:54 +0000

Some redesigns of older characters. And a random fairy.

A Jack Chick Halloween

Back From Anime Weekend Atlanta

Sai — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:08:29 +0000

As much as I hate to say it, AWA was a bust. I usually love this con and I hadn’t been able to attend in about 3 years, so needless to say I was excited to be going (and to be visiting with my friend Angel of course.) But yeah… Angel and I don’t think we’re going to go again. And she’s been going for 6 years straight. That oughta tell you something.

But that’s not to say it was all bad. I certainly enjoyed talking to the fans that stopped by, thanks to everyone who bought art, comics or buttons! Thanks also everyone who visited this site after talking a business card. And I met some awesome artists who I will link to later in this post.

The main problem was none of the artists seemed to make much money this year, and before you cry foul that we’re all money-grubbing sellouts: I only tend to make enough to cover my travel costs and maybe some extra, for me it’s more half vacation, half promotion. Other artists at least want to recoup the cost of their table, perhaps more local travel, and make a bit of a profit. So from a selling point of view, the con was just a tad abysmal. I think it was a number of factors, namely “the economy” and the fact the artist alley was in a room rather than an open area this year.

But even the events sucked. The only event I tend to make it to is Midnight Madness, and one year they had Studio Sokodei’s parody dubs, which can only be seen at cons, and the entire room was on the floor laughing. This year… well, it was painful. There was about 5 minutes of funny in between a whole slew of godawful acting, poor comedic timing, and unfunny jokes. Me and my friends’ half-awake heckling was funnier for crying out loud. I heard secondhand about other events being lackluster.

Well, at least Vic Mignogna was there as usual. He even came by the Artist Alley and then started messing around with the intercom system. You know. Because he can.

As for the aforementioned awesome artists: I got talking to Fevereon, the conversation becoming especially lively when we figured out we’re both native Rhodeys (no matter where you go in the world you will find someone else from Rhode Island, it is a fact.) Not only is her illustrative art great, but she creates mind-blowingly detailed cosplay weapons and costumes. In fact she was wearing a kickass Assassin’s Creed costume she made when I first saw her. Definitely check out her website, even if it’s just to ogle her creations.

I also bought a new pair of horns from Tangible Illusions who had a booth there this year (and judging by the number of her horns I saw people wearing might be one artist that did do well.) These are way better than my old clay horns, they’re hard but made of light-weight resin and are attached to a transparent and very thin but strong elastic. She makes so many different varieties it’s easy to find something you like.

Other than that I picked up a print copy of Strays, a webcomic I’ve been enjoying and I got to meet Blix-it from DA, an awesome artist I gave a Daily Deviation in my Gallery Director days and both of us apparently assumed the other wouldn’t know who we are.

So, that’s that. The con was still fun of course, but it’s beginning to not be worth our time is all (especially mine, with how far I travel.) Either next year or in 2011, I think Angel and I are going to be setting our sights on Otakon. It’s about time we went to a con closer to my neck of the woods.

Gallery Unbork

Sai — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:17:02 +0000

Well I’ve got a gallery up again now. Sort of.

I’ll be adding images to it to build it back up and eventually get the photography and comics back up as well. For reference I’m using NextGen Gallery now, it’s pretty cool, though I don’t usually like the Lightbox effect.

Gallery Bork

Sai — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:00:40 +0000

Why can’t I have nice things!? *ahem* Uh.. despite wrestling with the Aniga gallery plugin through a few versions of Wordpress and somehow miraculously making it work despite having no idea what I’m doing… it’s over. Apparently with this plugin activated it somehow interferes with my ability to save and preview posts.

How? I have no idea. Wordpress 2.8 is like a delicate princess who can’t sleep with a single pea under 20 mattresses, one thing goes wrong anywhere and it all falls apart. So allusions to suspiciously naughty Hans Christian Andersen allegories aside, what does this mean? It means I need to rebuild the galleries from the ground up.

Which means all the previous permalinks in old art update posts and cached by search engines will be broken. Which is exactly what I wanted to avoid in attempting to force Aniga to work with Wordpress 2.8 because the creator of the plugin not only isn’t going to update it anymore, but doesn’t even to offer it on his website anymore.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-