Weird.

[secondlina]

 Well, I haven't posted a drawing in about a week. Artist fail. 

I was pretty busy this week at work, pulled in some extra hours. But despite that, I still didn't draw much at all. So, this week, I pondered a bit on my lack of motivation.

I love to draw, there's no question there. I've got a few projects, solo and with partners about to hit the ground running, so I really need to focus my energy in drawing. So why can't I focus long enough to sit at my drawing table?

I though about it, and maybe it's because i've changed environements. I was pretty depressed for a while. I kinda jumped into a job (even jobs, plural) before really being settled in Montréal. I isolated myself from some people, put a lot of effort into meeting others, and never really took care of making my studio creative-friendly. Some of my material even died (death to the computer and some of my favorite paintbrushes). So really, this kinda seems like the good old saying "If you don't love yourself, you can't love others" but reformalated as "If you don't feel stable, you can't create". 

It seems kinda true. I need to find my center again. I need to find the fun in creating again. I was doing really well for a while and suddently it went "poof" after I got ROSE published and moved. Isa needs to meditate on her creative side for some. Drawing needs to stop being associated with stress in my brain. 

In other news, the "(avatar) The Last Airbender" movie trailer is out (and on youtube). Obviously, the internet exploded (much like when the dub cast for the new Slayers seasons got announced). I think the imagery looks cool. It kinda sucks that they put giant rock music instead of a more traditionnal, epic, asian-y tune, but that's hardly the director's fault. It's the marketing department. And often, marketing departments know NOTHING of the movie when they make the trailer (seriously. I worked marketing. All we get is a tiny report to created something. No joke.)

Personally, I think it would make a great trailer if they just re-did the animated show's opening narration and associated it to images from the movie. In any case, here's an image to celabrate the potentially good or bad movie (i'm still waiting to see it to give judgement...)



Cute neh? I love drawing Katara and Aang.

Here's a question to the slayers fans on my list : Don't you think the voices kinda sound different despite the fact that it's the same cast? Aside from Crispin Freeman, you can really feel 10 years passed. Oh well. It's still cool that they did that.

Over and out.

-Isa

Comments

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

Wish I could tell you how to find your creative center again. Maybe you just need to relax and let the ideas come. Granted, it's hard to find the energy/time when you're working full time. I've been having the same problem with writing my Sleeping Beauty novel.

Aang and Katara just fit your style perfectly. You always make them very cute. ^_~

I did think the Slayers cast sounded a bit different at first, but they sounded more like the characters by the end of episode 4. I think part of the problem was that they needed warm ups to refind their characters. It has been 10 years since they did the voices (and Eric Stuart hasn't done actual voice acting for a while I think), except for Freeman who got to do Zelgadis for the Slayers Premium.

I think the dub will get better from here, but the cast could have benefit from warm up takes or something.

[ichiban-victory.livejournal.com]

It might be good to work on your creative environment. Having to live in Spartan apartments myself, I find it very important even to have a stuffed animal or something I can look at to inspire me (stuffed animals = ideas for how to sew things). Without anything I just don't ever feel inspired.

As for the voice cast in Slayers, of course they sound different. It has been ten years since they last voiced the characters (sans Crispin Freeman) so they've been off voicing other characters who do not sound like Lina, Gourry, etc. They just need time to find the characters again. I expect that not too many episodes into the series they'll have found their proper voice again.

(Does Aang ever get hair? It makes sense he would have hair, but in all the media I ever saw he was bald, so seeing him with hair is rather...jarring.)

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

Aang gets hair for some time in season 3. It was part of his disguise for sneaking around in the Fire Nation. That's all I can say without revealing spoilers. ^_~

[amberpalette.livejournal.com]

Great doodle as always!

With respect to the Slayers dub, I think Freeman and Taylor sound close to the same (although Freeman so far sounds gentler, more contemplative, and more....Rezo-esque....which may be an attempt to prepare for the uber-drama of Evo-R ep 10 and the explicit kinsmanship ties between them...but for whatever reason, in many episodes of NEXT and TRY, Zelgadiss was much more boisterously annoyed and brusque than he has been so far in the REVO dub, even in the fourth episode with the shenanigans with Amelia and blowing up the forest). Ortiz's Lina sounds shriller and cuter than she used to be, which may be the actress's over-attempt to sound young when it's been a decade since her last Lina voicing. Still, she beats Martinez's Lina.....and Gourry (Brock lol) is the one who sounds the most different to me. But he seems to warm up by the fourth ep.

[auriga]

Sorry to hear you haven't been feeling like drawing as much. It's probably a buildup of a lot of things...the change in environment, like you said. I imagine the problems you had way back when with that publisher for ROSE didn't help. Hopefully you'll be able to get over your artist's block before too long. There'd be nothing worse than your favourite hobby becoming stressful work!

As for the VAs for Slayers, agreeing that it's probably just been so long. I'm with Joanne in that I'm surprised they didn't do some practice runs to allow them to get the feel for their characters again, but oh well. The release date's coming up, too!

[snapdragon76.livejournal.com]

Here's hoping you can jump kick your creativity soon. Don't try to force it though. It'll come back.

Cute cute CUTE Kataang drawing! :DD

[spankingfemme.livejournal.com]

Cute art as always baby ;)

I do feel you totally on creative space needing to reflect your mood. I hope you can get it straight soon and get to pumping out more art! =D

[amelia-seyroon.livejournal.com]

I hope you can get your drawing muse back! &hearts&hearts&hearts

Can't comment on the voices as I haven't watched Slayers Revolution dubbed...yet. >/

[izo-chan.livejournal.com]

I think earthstar_chan and ichiban_victory have the right idea -- I know from experience that I only made it worse whenever I stressed out over a lack of desire to draw or overall creative energy. Thinking about it and worrying only seems to widen the gap between what you want to do and what you can do. So I would try to relax and not think about it -- just let it come when it's ready and in the meantime surround yourself with things to inspire you. It will come back. <3 Don't worry. You can never lose your ability/talent, but you can make yourself more comfortable in a mental sense while waiting for it to return.

I hope that's helpful to you! :D

"And often, marketing departments know NOTHING of the movie when they make the trailer (seriously. I worked marketing. All we get is a tiny report to created something. No joke.)"

Huh. I was wondering what was up with that. Because a lot of movies get advertised with the wrong tone/music (or at least imho) and it's kind of a turn off to me -- especially with the hard rock theme because it's just SO overused. It doesn't stop me from watching the movie usually (unless the overall impression is just that bad and then in that case I wait for DVD) but it does make me sigh every time. Like "oh boy, here we go again..."

You'd think the movie studio that wants to advertise these multi-million dollar budget movies would give the marketing companies a little more to work with -- then again it must be fine the way it is given ticket sales. Ah well. ^^;;

[kokumi009.livejournal.com]

There's no neat trick going around bad pockets of creativity, but you can try a fresh start. You can distract yourself with something completely irrelevant for awhile to refresh your mind. hopefully, you feel like working again. But, that's just me.

I am also quite excited to see this Air bender movie, mostly because I'm interested with the story.

[brendala.livejournal.com]

I can sympathize with the loss of the artistic drive. Mine doesn't come too often these days either. :(


I wanted to give The Last Airbender the benefit of the doubt. But all the nonsense regarding the cast has turned me off big time. Casting two of the whitest actors in the universe as Sokka and Katara is just something I can't get over (even if the film turns out to be really cool).


Regarding the Slayers Revolution cast: I thought Veronica Taylor was the only one who sounded pitch-perfect from episode one. Crispin Freeman's voice sounds a lot deeper (maybe it's because he's older?) and Eric Stuart didn't sound right until episode two.
It does bother me a little that Lina's voice is so high in Revolution. I can't help wondering if Ortiz is doing it like that intentionally or if 10 years of constantly playing cutesy, helium-voiced characters caused her natural voice to change. Or maybe the director simply asked her to do it that way. Who knows?