Quarantined

Hi dear blog, it's certainly been a while as always. As many of you must know, I live in the Seattle area which has recently become the ground-zero american city for the virus -- I'm sick of hearing about it so I won't even mention it. So working from home has pretty much become the only option these days, I've been mainly locked at home and barely leaving every two or three days for a few hours.

I've been trying to write more comic strips and uploading them to Instagram. Been thinking about creating a new section for the web exclusively for Comics and also upload the Inktober 2019 masterpieces (?). Those are a big due. Otherwise it's been a slow start of the year, I'm really hoping to get the last episode of Escuadron 37 ready eventually (last time I checked it was at about 4 minutes).

And oh yeah, I've been mainly using Clip Studio these days for doodles and comics, I've been really enjoying it. You can actually notice that in the last 7 or 8 artworks I uploaded, you can see the watercolor trace and how it differs from what I was doing before (Adobe Animate). I think I'll keep going on this path and just leave Adobe Animate exclusively for animation purposes.

If I survive the virus, you'll hear back again from me for sure :)
Don't forget to follow me on social media since it's usually sliiiightly more updated than my website, although I try to keep everything in synch as much as possible.

www.twitter.com/krecko4000
www.instagram.com/okcerk

'Til next time!

Site back online!

After dealing with a lot of struggle as I said in my previous post, two days ago I was able to re-upload my site with a well formatted nodejs / react structure. The look and feel is exactly as before except for a few added things and some missing ones (but barely). It took me several tries but I finally got it uploaded and decided to go for Heroku as my web-app host.
There is a web icon and a few other small extra things plus three new art works (finally catching up on my Instagram account). I'll be adding an infinite scroller to avoid loading so many images at once (specially in the Sketches section since it's getting huge) and hopefully Spanish support! Yep, it's been a while since I had my site in Spanish. We've got a few snowy days coming up here in Seattle so I'll see if I can catch up on these tasks.
I'm also back to the last episode of Escuadron 37, so far there's almost 5 minutes done for it but it's going to be a very long ride unfortunately (but hopefully worth it in the end!).

Be good people! Til next time .-

What's going on?

As I'm typing this it's 8 am on Saturday 12/14 but somehow I remembered I had a blog still existing. I still wonder how many people read blogs these days and in fact how many read mine. Based on visit stats to my website I don't think too many. But let's get started here...

What's going on in the life of Andres / Okcerk ? Things have not change much in this last year I gotta say, regardless some personal issues, I've had some fun working on Inktober once again and started sketching using ClipStudio which combined with my Wacom Cintiq brings pretty good results. I'm still due on finishing the Escuadron 37 final episode which so far it's got about 3 / 4 minutes in. The script is quite long and I still haven't wrapped up the ending but I feel like it'll eventually happen. I won't die without this episode being released :)

As always, my most recent works can be found on Instagram: @okcerk.
Regarding my website: I'm actively working on refactoring the whole code structure with a final goal of reaching a wider audience. If you didn't know, the current site was written in just one weekend and it achieved what I needed, however I had a few restrictions and now I'm doing the proper job to have it nicely done (yes, if you didn't know, I'm a software engineer and still code on a daily basis). I'm always a few works behind on my website, that's why I recommend following me on Instagram for the most up to date doodles.

I've also done some travelling as every year, in fact I just came back from a trip to India. I've been uploading travel photos to a new Instagram account: @okcerk_ (yes. a very original name).

Finally, I'm currently in research of a nice 2D animation school that hopefully does online courses. So if you happen to know of one, please reach out to me!

Alright, time for some breakfast.- Til next time!

Winter notes from the PNW

It's been an intense and interesting winter so far in the Pacific North West but I also got to do some travelling in the past couple of months. In November I got to do some travelling across the US, I finally visited the state of Texas and got to spend a couple days in Vegas (my second time there). Later on Christmas Day I traveled to a very cold Europe where I visited Munich, Berlin, Prague and Budapest.
Note to myself: check the weather in winter, specially if you are going to eastern Europe.

Me in Budapest, in January

Now I've been back for about a month, back to life in Seattle (which included quite some snow) and back to days and days of coding. Not as much drawing as I'd like though, but I still make myself some time for it:
I've been working a little on Escuadron 37 and spending some time updating the website -- You may have seen how I turned everything into dark color and added new links on the top of the page.
I've also been doing some more ink drawings, which I later turn into digital. That was one of the leftover things I got from Inktober last year :)

One of my latest creations, originally made in ink

I don't have much planned for this year, but I'm hoping I do go further into animation. I'll keep you guys updated! Til next time .

A.

Monster Project Unite + Inktober 2018

For the fourth day straight I have been participating in this year's Inktober! What does this mean? Everyday in October there will be a topic for which people would be able to draw and post it online.

This year's Inktober topics!

It's been intense so far and this is indeed a big challenge given that I gotta make sure I make myself the time daily to submit a new drawing. I have been pretty active on Instagram: www.instagram.com/okcerk specially in the last week or so.

I have also been participating in the Monster Project UNITE. (https://themonsterproject.org/). Every other week a kid from around the world will submit their own drawing for a monster and people around the world will recreate it their own version of such monster. I have been part of the first two so far and tomorrow there will be a new prompt. This is far from exciting since one is excitedly awaiting for that Friday to see what the next monster is going to be.

My version of Barbara's monster

Original second MonsterProject UNITE prompt made by Barbara, 10, from Brazil

It's been some interesting couple of weeks where I've also been adding some new regular-- drawings to my Instagram account as well. I've decided I'll be taking a little longer to keep my website updated so it may be behind by a couple of weeks but I'll get there eventually. I'll probably be creating an "Inktober 2018" or "Projects" section to upload all these new creations.

On the other side, I've finally started digitizing this one comic I had partially made last year. It's a long project that I want to get to and will hopefully see the light sometime next year (yeah, 2018 is pretty much done isn't it?). I'll also be taking some time off in November and later in December but will  keep adding content as usual.
But Andres what about animation projects? I gotta get back to that! Still got the last episode of Squad 37 to finish and have to come up with an idea for an independent short film. Hoping to have more time in 2019 to tackle these ones down :)

Bis bald_ Andres

The end of the summer

Well I gotta say it's been a nice summer so far, hopefully we still got a couple of weeks more here in the Pacific North West. However, you can already feel it's going away unfortunately.

Personally, I've been feeling accomplished regarding my artistic work this year so far. At least my Instagram account has been pretty active -- sorry guys for not updating the website as often as I should have, will try to get better at it. The website really needs to be pumped up by setting up a new way of uploading content (right now it's been very manual) and that's the main reason I've been slow here :) -- Well also remember I got a completely unrelated job and rent to pay .. oh well.
There are still many projects I'm trying to accomplish but I really need more time, I guess that's everyone's desire, isn't it? For now, doodles will keep being uploaded and hopefully a new short film or the last episode of Squad 37 will keep in production (there are already a couple of minutes made there).

On the other side, I spent a couple of days in Los Angeles this summer and after the third time going there I got to go to Universal Studios Hollywood. I had already been to Universal in Orlando and Osaka (Japan) and since they were quite similar, I didn't have huge expectations for this one. However two things: One the Studio Tour at Universal Hollywood is a MUST DO, it's just an amazing one hour ride that you cannot miss. Second, I was lucky enough to be there for the last day of the Jurassic Park ride, after about 22 years it was going extinct that one Monday night! Even though I was never a huge fan of such ride, it was a pleasure going there for one last time. It seems they are going to be working on a Jurassic World ride to open in 2019, so that'll be interesting to see and probably will need to book another flight to LA.

Finally, I've created a dashboard on Threadless.com: https://okcerk.threadless.com/
I'll be uploading my doodles there so that people can buy products with them in it. I'll have to start promoting it soon and see how that goes, but looks like a very interesting side business for artists so check it out!

Until the next time!

About travelling and moving

I've recently spent some time off flying back home and moving to a new place in Seattle-- Main reason I haven't uploaded much in the last month and a half, sorry for the inactivity.

Travelling back home (Argentina) was an experience, it had been two years and a half since I had flown there and it was great going to my best friend's wedding and meeting people I hadn't seen in a long time. It's also always a really weird feeling, some things change but also many remain intact and it feels like one's moved and gone everywhere and those things got stuck in time with no change whatsoever. They're just a few things I won't name, but that was the general feeling. Oh yes, I brought some Fernet Branca which is surprisingly cheaper down there compared to the states -- turns out since it's the country that consumes it the most, they've got their own 'fernet factory'.

On the other hand, before leaving I had left my place in Bellevue, WA in order to move to Seattle (they're 20 minutes away from each other) the day after I was getting back. And even though I don't own many things (or didn't use to, I've been purchasing furniture lately), I can say moving is a pain in the ass. Because I didn't have many things I did the moving myself with some help from some folks, but it was still painful. I've also been buying nice furniture but it's taking time, every single piece I'm purchasing I have to be super sure it'll fit and that I'll like it -- quite different from past times where I just went to Ikea and got everything at once. But that's part of the charm anyways. I'm still thinking whether I made a good choice picking this place up or not, but it's been alright so far.

Oh yeah and I went to see The Offspring last night at the Sabroso Taco Fest in Auburn, WA.

First time seeing one of my fav bands of all times

I've got a sick desk and a nice setup to keep sketching and uploading stuff to the site. I can't wait to get back on it!

Until the next time,

A.