Where the Infrastructure Ends

I live in a small New England town at the end of a street nobody uses. There is a sign at the intersection saying that "This is Not Route 12," thus strongly implying that anybody going this way is probably doing so by accident. For those of us who live here, it's like a delightful look into the future when a combination of decaying hardware and rationed resources have lead to spotty service all around. This is Where the Infrastructure Ends.

After Hurricane Irene came through parts of the road caved in, and because this isn't a high-traffic area, those holes were covered with huge pieces of sheet steel that were sort of welded in place with asphalt and left that way for the winter. I suppose that they'll be taken away this summer and the hole filled, but if they aren't there isn't a thing I can do about it.

Utility service is, to be fair, usually good, but that's gauged against 100% service, as opposed to those rolling blackouts they have in North Korea. Measured up against any other service I've had in the United States, we lose power a LOT more than is normal. I've had the wires yanked off the side of the house by a falling tree, and it didn't even fall there. It feel farther up the line, yanking the cables so tight that the whole connection point, including some of the wood, came off the side of the building.

Another time, the power went off with the sound of a gunshot. It turns out that's the noise the breakers they put on the poles (yes, apparantly they put breakers on poles) trip. Gunfire. Because that sound coinciding with total darkness isn't alarming in any way.

The phones work alright.

Right now, a water main in front of the house is bleeding water into the street. This is Monday and it started leaking on Friday. They put a cone on it and left it. Apparantly losing thousands of gallons of water isn't a big deal, but okay, everybody needs some time off. As Monday turns into Tuesday, however, I'm wondering if anybody is ever actually going to come deal with this leak. However, like the steel places five hundred yards up, I must admit that it's interesting to see what happens when people just take a problem... and leave it.

My Slight Fuss with Drawing Books

Kuurion here. So, some of you may know I'm in school now. I'll be starting a new class in less than a week, and just got one of my new class books in the mail. It's a specialized "Character Design" cartooning book. I spent about an hour this morning reading through it and flipping through all 30 pages of it, and I don't know if I'm just too opinionated or what, but I really find myself disliking the approach.

A little clarification might be needed. I already know know a good many points on how to draw. I'm not worried about my own abilities or even the style the books takes; I'm sure I can pick a few pointers out of it, especially if I pursue a certain style change I've been thinking about trying. My beef is with the approach of the school in sending this textbook to people who may have never drawn before. The class is a class specifically on character design, and the book gives generally good ideas, but it's already specialized, which is a no-no as I learned it.

One of the tips I picked up when I was just beginning to develop my own talent was to avoid this type of book for a good long while. Anything that teaches you from square 1 how to draw with already-exaggerated body types, facial expressions, etc (anime books in particular are bad offenders) is skipping a crucial step in understanding the REAL forms that you are imitating. So I dropped money for a hobby on books about proper anatomy for the artist, proper perspectives, facial expressions focusing on the muscles underneath the flesh and how they work to form faces we recognize. Short works like this book may have their place for young people just drawing for some fun, or for specialized training in certain styles, but (in my opinion) not as a starting point for artists developing their talents for future careers.

The way I've seen it is that you need to know what something real looks like, and then deform your shapes off of THAT. This gives you a strong base that you can always come back to, and then perhaps work in a completely different direction from. But who knows, perhaps I'm just too stubborn about it. Now that I've grown accustomed to my own style of pseudo-realistic proportions, I have trouble drawing something more deformed. It never looks "right" to me, and fighting with perfectionism as I already do, I can't be happy with it. On the flipside AGAIN, that could just be me fighting with perfectionism, and not the greater host of bodies in the art world.

Long story short, I hope I'm more wrong about this assumption than I am right. Cause if I'm right, there's a whole class of potential artists being trained the wrong way before being sent off into the rightfully terrifying world of searching for work as an artist. If I'm wrong, then I'm just inflexible and it's my problem. The latter only affects me, and I can, to an extent, remedy. The former, not so much.

Blog Feed Corrected!

Kuurion here. My coding skills have prevailed, and the blog feed you're probably reading these words on is now placed correctly. Thus, I've placed it on the index page as well! Enjoy our mindless ramblings!