The Art of Tim

I had a really good Christmas. I enjoyed it particularly because my family didn’t focus very much on gifts. We exchanged some presents, but it wasn’t made into a big deal. It was more about hanging out. Next year I wouldn’t mind taking it even a step further and skipping presents on Christmas morning alltogether, and insteading playing a board game together or something.

I got Britanny a new winter jacket, because we’re going skiing for a week shortly. I also got her the boxed set for Sex in the City. She got me a new leather wallet from Brookstone and a handful of other things I needed.

My roommate Briana knitted me my very own Jayne Hat for Christmas. Firefly fans will know what I’m talking about.

I did this sketch on a 11×14 piece of bristol board for one of my roommates as a christmas gift. I thought I’d share with you. It has a few flaws, but that’s what sketches are all about.

Yesterday was fun. I took my car out for a little while, to do some quick errands. Got a lot of stares, and even a few shouted compliments. When I got home I locked and wrapped her up in the garage.

Britanny and I spent the rest of the day cooking a nice holiday dinner for us and Matt and Briana. It turned out really great, and afterwards we sat in the living room and opened presents. When we were done, we started to watch March of the Penguins, which was really good, but we started to fall asleep so we called it a night.

I’m heading up to Cape Cod today to spend the weekend with my family for the holiday.

Have a safe and happy weekend, everyone. I’ll see you next week.

I got my MX-3 back, by the way. I know there was a chunk of you that were eager to see how she turned out. This is totally going to be a car post, so if cars don’t do it for you, you could skip this and not be missing anything important.

So the MX-3 is going to be packaged up and stored for the winter shortly. She’ll never be driven in rain or snow again, but while the weather holds clear I may be able to sneak in a few joyrides.

In case you don’t remember it all started here.

Here is how she looks now:

I’m really happy to have it back. I love my Jeep, but I missed driving a standard. And I missed the way she sounds. Now that I’ve already done the engine swap, the headers and exhaust work, and the cold-air intake, my next projects will be the suspension and the brakes. She needs to be lowered about an inch, maybe an inch and a half. And I definitely need new rotors.

The interior needs to be finished as well. Since I’m removing the rear seat in favor of possibly a roll cage, I’ll need some extra carpeting done. I’ve got Sparco Torino seats in there now (forgot to take the plastic off for the pictures).

But these projects will wait until early next spring, when I take her out of storage. Once she’s all finished, I’ll start bringing her to car shows and MX-3 meets around New England, just for fun.

Zoom zoom.

So today was the last day of finals for Britanny. It was a really rough semester, and I know she’s relieved that it’s over, so we went out to celebrate. As such, I put off work for a while, and I was up late finishing up today’s comic. I downed a bunch of Red Bull to help keep me awake, which I wouldn’t usually do, but we had some around since Toby and his girlfriend Dara visited last weekend, and Dara works for Red Bull.

Aaaaaanyway, I finished the comic and was still wide awake. So I decided to do another throwaway sketch for ya. A throwaway sketch for me is art for the sake of art. A quick sketch that I don’t spend more than twenty minutes on total, and whose sole purpose is to get art out of my system. Be it a certain pose, a certain character, outfit, or just trying something a lil different. It is what it is, and it will never be “complete” or polished. I sketch it, get it out of my system, and then it gets pushed to the side, or thrown out.

I’m really proud of Britanny, and I’m happy that she gets to relax for a little while over the holidays. We went out for food and drinks, and then came back home and watched a movie. The Fantastic Four. We missed it in the theaters, so we hadn’t seen it yet. I enjoyed it, actually. It had plenty of cheeseball moments, but overall I thought it was entertaining. Not the worst super hero movie by any means.

A quick throw-away sketch. *shrug*

Quick sketch on the Cintiq this afternoon. Spent about an hour on it. Two levels of sketching, inked and colored directly over the sketchwork. No shadow layer, only highlights. Five or six highlight layers.