2010 Sketch Update, Plus My Christmas Adventure Story

Hello and Happy Holidays, everybody!  I hope you're all having a wonderful December!

Anyways, there has been a lack of an update as far as my sketches are concerned.  Yes, I have started a new sketchbook... um... quite some time ago.  It's one of those recycled, economical sketch books, but the toned paper was what drew me to it.  I don't think I can ever go back to boring, old white paper.  So what I have for you today is a compilation of my favorite pages from 2010.  Also included are preliminary sketches of finished work I might have posted on here.  Now, I'm certainly not done sketching for the year, since we still have a few days left, but I thought it would be nice to post this up now.  So, here we go:

Click for a better look.

(just in case the image doesn't show up correctly: link )

Now, in addition to this image, I have a little story to tell you all.  It's kinda of a glimpse at the awkwardness of my life that I decided to tell you all.  This is the story of my Christmas Adventure to spend the day outside and also watch Tron: Legacy.  And it goes a lil' somethin' like this...

Christmas (and also New Years) have always been a very lonely time of year for me.  Both of my parents work on that day, and I don't have any relatives that live in California.  It would also seem kinda silly to ask any of my friends to hang out with me, since they are probably hanging out with their families that day.  I really love that feeling of being together with a huge family and enjoying each others company on such a joyous occasion.  Unfortunately, I'm alone for the holiday, and I don't want to spend my day indoors playing video games.

So, I decided to go out! 

December 25th came around, and I was ready to go on my adventure to the Irvine Spectrum, 'cause I bought a ticket to see Tron in IMAX the previous night.  I wanted to see Tron on opening night, but a heavy storm was making its way through California for several days, so Christmas would have to do.  The travel time was gonna be under 3 hours via the public transportation system, so I had a lot of traveling time to do.  I had already opened Christmas gifts the previous night, and I received a brand new camera to take with me on my adventure, so I would be all set to take photos, as well as get some drawings done.  Long drawing trips are always fun.  I brought my usual bag of stuffage, being my art supplies and my sketchbook, as well as a Mrs. Field's cookie and a Toblerone, which I also received for Christmas.

So, I woke up, got ready, and I walked to the bus stop through the heavy fog of the morning.  There was this old guy sitting at the bus stop.  He looked like he was holding a large can of beer or something, and he was asking for change.  I turned him down, but also gave him a cheery 'Merry Christmas, good sir' so he wouldn't feel as bad.  I assumed he didn't.

I got on the bus and spent the next 35 minutes drawing until I got to my next stop.  I should mention the music I was listening to through-out my day.  Every year, I always download these albums named "Santastic" which are mash-up christmas songs from mashuptown.com .  So was listening to things like 'Little Saint Grinch' (which is the Beach Boys mixed with that song from the Grinch), 'Insane in the Winter Wonderland' (Beastie Boys with Winter Wonderland), and 'Xmasploitation' (which was Frosty the Snow man with random Blacksploitation music and movie sound clips).  So that was my soundtrack for the day.

I took the number 35 bus all the way to Edinger and Bookhurst in Westminster, and I had a 33 minute wait before I could take the 70 bus east, so I thought I would take that time to get some breakfast.  I purposely didn't eat breakfast that morning, 'cause I knew I had a 33 minute wait, and got off in front of a Burger King.  Unfortunately for me, Burger King is closed on Christmas.  I thought that fast food restaurants were open on the holiday, but it's only a select number of fast food restaurants that are actually open (you'll hear about this again towards the end of my story).  So, places like Burger King and Taco Bell were closed, while Jack in the Box and KFC were open.  I was hungry, so I started walking around the little strip mall for something to eat.  It was mostly Vietnamese stores and restaurants, but I would feel embarrassed to just walk in. Ha ha!  So, I ended up eating my Mrs. Field cookie, which was already crumbling in my bag.

With 27 minutes left, I decided to walk down Edinger, because there was this nice little park and it would be a good idea to spend some time with nature that morning.  And it was.  I ended up walking for a little while, until my bus came.

So, I continued to draw stuff as I was taking the 70 down to the end of the line, where I would transfer to the 90.  There was this awesome looking guy who came on the bus and sat down.  He looked like a cross between Van Helsing and Zorro.  He had the Helsing hat and a jet black, Zorro-type beard, and he was wearing this very spanish-looking, black suit.  He was badass, and I had to draw him. (You can see him in the right hand corner of the last page in the compilation of my sketches, above.)

I made my transfer from the 70 to the 90, and took the bus all the way to the Irvine Spectrum Center, which is this big, outdoor mall.  At this point, it would have been about 11am, and that mall of pretty empty.... well, not so empty that there was nobody, there were probably about 30 people there at the time I arrived.  Most shops there were closed.  The only food places open were a Charlie's Sandwich Whatevers, some Kabob place, and a Coldstone.  The theater was also open, of course, but my movie didn't start til 1:10pm, so I had plenty of time to spare.  I got a cheesestake sandwich to eat, and went exploring the entire mall.  

I did some perspective drawings, which is what I usually do when I go there.  I found an awesome mannequin at a (what I think was called) H&M, that I took some photos of, cause I really liked the pose, and of course, I did some drawings of that too.  It was a little awkward though, because there were some people hanging around there, and I think they saw me take photos of this mannequin. :/
 

Here's a photo of the said mannequin.  You might not think it's that great, but I think it's a rather strong, hip little mannequin.  It's always fun to look at mannequins in general.

With not very many people there, it's nice to spend the time and take a closer look at all of these window displays (since none of the stores were open).  The apple store had this strange display where this robotic Santa had his back turned and was looking at an iphone.  So, it was 12:45, and it was time to start walking to the theater.  This was around the time when more and more people started coming into the mall.  I went to the theater, and a lot of the seats were filled up, which is to be expected for a movie on Christmas day.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a middle seat, so I was at a strange angle.  Also, I'm fairly certain that I was sitting in the EXACT same seat that I sat in when I went to watch Toy Story 3 in IMAX here.

So after a week, I finally watched Tron Legacy. I was very excited for it, but the damn storm kept me from going out AT ALL, so this day would have been the most ideal for me to go.  Tron was excellent.  The 'pixelation' effects whenever somebody got hit by something were cool and the updates on the previous movie's technology is always interesting to see.  I play disk golf sometimes, so it was fun to point out the different maneuvers the characters were doing as they were throwing their disks.  The movie kept me entertained and in suspense throughout the entire thing.  Music by Daft Punk was awesome, and Olivia Wilde was gorgeous in this movie.  Every time she was on screen, I was like *sigh... faint*... yeah, I'm lame like that. x_x

Now, because it's Christmas, bus schedules were very limited, so right when the movie ended, I had to jet out of there to catch my bus, otherwise I would have had to wait 2 hours until the next bus came, and it would have been dark by then (the movie ended at 3:20, by the way).  So I got out of the theater, and ran to the bus stop.  I caught the bus, and made my transfers from the 90 to the 70 and to the bus stop for the 35 bus.  According to my little direction print out, telling me which buses I needed to take to go home, I had to wait 39 minutes before my bus would arrive.  The problem is that not only would it be a long wait or that it would be dark by the time it would have arrived... but that I had to pee really, REALLY bad.  So, I ended up walking along brookhurst, looking for a restroom in a fast food restaurant.  Now, like I mentioned earlier, not every fast food restaurant was open this day.  I walked about 10 minutes until I came across a Taco Bell, which was closed.  Dammit.  I walked about 10 more minutes until I came across a Jack in the Box and a KFC right next to each other.  And my luck is just wonderful.  I walk into the Jack in the Box, only to find that they were cleaning/doing maintenance on the restrooms... so they were made unavailable.  I went to the KFC... the women's restroom was open... the men's was out of order.  What the hell?!
So continued to walk down that street, only to realize that I had no time left to look for a place and had to go to a bus stop to catch my bus.  It was dark, and I was standing at this bus stop in this Vietnamese neighborhood.  The magical bus finally arrived, and I had to wait 30 minutes before I could go home and use the bathroom.
And that was my Christmas day adventure!  Ta-dah!
It was pretty fun except for that last part.  It's always nice to go out and have fun.

Well, here's to a great 2011 and I hope great things will happen to you during the new year.  Lates~!