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Hello,

So, it has been a LOOOOONG time since I have updated or posted anything.  I am not much of a blogger, but I should keep up so I can remember things.  However, since it has been less than a year since my last post, I don't feel SO horrible.

What's been up in my world as of this past almost year?  Lots of things actually!

1) I made a page on facebook and you can check it out here: http://www.facebook.com/RyavenDesignCo  I try to post on there for updates and stuff too, but eh.....I'll make an effort :)

2) I have also joined a group called "Batman's Asylum".  It is a DC/Batman cosplay group located in the Pittsburgh area.  Our goal is to travel around to conventions and other events to promote different organizations as well as ourselves: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Batmans-Asylum/206466832720676

3) I am SUPER EXCITED to be involved with my friends here in Monessen.  I'm helping with a film called Captain Happy Sun.  It's basically a kid's show on acid (think of combining Wondershowsen with The Mighty Boosh) http://www.facebook.com/pages/Captain-Happy-Sun-Film-Page/139705156092020.  I wish all of them the best in getting things finished and am so glad to be a part of this :)


4) I HAVE GRADUATED TWICE IN 4 MONTHS!!!!  I graduated from the Tom Savini Special Makeup Effects program on January 31 with an Associate in Specialized Business degree.  I also graduated this past Tuesday (May 24th) from the Dorian Cleavenger Fantasy Art Program with a diploma :).  So yeah, two degrees and a diploma under my belt, how's that?

Now to find a job....

Quite personally, I would love it if I could find a job in Illustration, doing the makeup effects for independent productions like the one i am working on now, or....my really big desire, to work for and eventually own a toy company.  I really want to work on making figurines and articulated figures, like ball jointed dolls.

Gotta go and work on that stuff :D. 

I'll update when more fun stuff happens!

More website update stuff- Otakon too

Getting geared up for Otakon!! AGGGHHH!!! It comes by too quickly. I'm going to jumble together a costume and get together my art stuff so that I can do some networking. I have an updated business card that I will be handing out to people and I will be dragging my portfolio with me :).

If I have time, I'll update my Flickr with new pictures. However, since it's such crunch time, I don't know.
I want to update my original website www.ryaven.com, however, it's kind of complicated and I have to find my webmaster to ....tell him...stuff...like...how I want to do this stuff all myself. How hard can it be to set up a simple html site? lol.

Anyway, here are my updated business card pics:

First up is the old back from my previous cards. I really like it, so I will keep it now :)


Here's the updated front. I may tweak it quick and add "Illustrator" to my list



That's all for now. Ja-Ne! :D

School and Life update

Hey all who may read this blog--

Ok, so as for school:

Working on projects, hoping to get them done ASAP. I've been making non-wearable teeth for practice and today in class we're learning how to make wearable dentures that are customized for our partners :D. I'm excited!!!

I am really excited because of the makeup that I"m going to do to my friend and the fact that the teeth go with it. She's going to be Mommy Fortuna from "The Last Unicorn". I know I won't get the full makeup done by Otakon, but I would love love love! to get the sculpt and the teeth done by then.

Why am I concerned about Otakon in the school update??? Because PETER S. BEAGLE IS COMING TO OTAKON!!!!! I want to get as much done with the makeup as possible before heading out there. I want to show him what I can do :D.

Also sort of concerning a combination of school and life-- As long as I'm actually hired, I will be doing an internship at a haunted attraction- Rich's Fright Farm, I believe. It should prove to be very awesome. I'm hoping to work on construction, painting, airbrushing, designing, etc. during the July-September round and do some makeup from September-October for the attraction. The theme this year is Zombie Apocalypse!!! So I'll get to make zombies *kekeke/giggle*

It'll be a chance for me to apply what I'm learning out in the field which, even though it may be hard to balance an internship with classes, will give me a boost in confidence that I can actually do what I was taught.



For an actual life update-- Some of you may know that I've been having stomach/digestive problems for a while. My stomach hasn't actually been right for years with all the random aches, pains, etc. A few months ago, my doctor diagnosed me with an ulcer. It was stress related, he said, which made sense since finals time was coming up...EEP! However it's continued to hurt and I've had some flare-ups. I've gotten rid of some habit/behaviors/factors that cause the flare-ups (decreasing any junk food intake, no spicy food :(, no alcohol, no tight waist pants), but I still have problems. I had a bad set of flare-ups this past weekend and I was basically like "Done" "No more"

I have to do something about it, so I'm now going to get an ultrasound, because guess what?! I may have a dysfunctional gall bladder. Yay! Not really. It's not yay at all. I do want the problem to be fixed, but hopefully I won't go as far as to need surgery.

Just hoping for the discomfort/pain to go away. I want to enjoy food again and being able to do other stuff in life without sitting in the corner and sulking because my tummy hurts. Blech!

I'm going to be optimistic though! I will get better no matter what happens. Just have to keep positive. My parents and my brother are helping out a lot ^_^

Til later, I've got to go do some homework!

Ryaven Effects Update/School update

Ok, tonight I'm updating the site with portfolio pictures. I will be mainly putting up pics for my school work and curriculum related ventures. Once I get more pictures of other stuff I've made I will post that too.

As for school-- I'm currently working on a second set of teeth for dentures. The first one is a set of "nasty old people teeth" which I will be using along with my multi-piece appliance* to make a Mommy Fortuna makeup on a classmate.

The second set of teeth I'm working on are for myself. I am going to make Grelle Sutcliff's teeth from Black Butler/Kuroshitsuji. He/she/it has wicked fanged teeth like a piranha and wields a chainsaw, which I will be making for my props class next semester.

I'm working on sculpting a bust of a Kappa**. I am intending on it being one ugly beastie and to not look like most other Kappa out there.

Currently, I am getting ready to do a multi-piece appliance of Mommy Fortuna, or at least an old, angry woman. My goal is to make it good enough (including the costume, makeup, wig, props, etc.) that I can send pictures of it to the original author of The Last Unicorn. In the very least, I would think he'd get a kick out of it if not consider promoting my work when the rights for the current live action movie run out.

*Multi-piece Appliance: A customized prosthetic makeup composed of several separate pieces that later get joined. They allow for more movement in the face and are much more complicated than a one-piece appliance.

**Kappa: A Japanese water sprite-- Attributes: Appearance of a turtle, frog, duck, and human. They have a bowl on their head that holds their life source water. They are known to kidnap children that get to close to the river and drown them/eat them. They are also known to attack other people and suck out/eat the victim's entrails through their anus.

Despite all of their nasty habits, they are actually polite creatures and follow Japanese ritual when they are greeted formally. If one wishes to thwart an oncoming Kappa, they simply bow to them. Out of humility, the Kappa bows lower than the person, therefore spilling its life water and weakening or dying. Other methods to stave off the Kappa are cucumbers and sometimes watermelons, for which they have a fondness.

They are often depicted as cute green ducky things with turtle shells and bald heads but can also be shown as ugly demons all covered in wrinkles with sharp beaks. They really resemble a turtle or frog though.


There's your history lesson today!!

Off to updating :)

Update Uuberfail! Ha.

Hey all,

So--If you read my last entry you'll realize that I did not in fact update more than once back in March. I didn't even update in April or May! lol. So I'm going to try to pick up the pace and do an update now.

What's been going on since March?

I was in my second semester in March, so that's been finished. I helped with a student movie called "The Mechanical Man". I did some minor props- a steampunk style movie projector and an old fashioned hopping frog toy powered by a bellows. I have yet to see the movie, but the effects/design director told me that my frog toy was featured up front in the film :D.

In April...I went to Tekkoshocon 8. I didn't get to cosplay or participate in the hall cosplay competition, but oh well, I did get to enjoy myself. Got to see some friends, met up with ABJD (Asian ball jointed dolls) people and bring Tsuki with me. I also got to see some good panels, see Greg Ayres again, and go to a couple of concerts (for FREEEEEEEEEE!) That's why cons are so cool ^_^.

After that, in mid April I went to the Seismic Phoenix Mock Disaster Relief training exercise with a bunch of other Douglas students (Specifically from the Savini program). It was a fairly large training exercise for the medical teams in the Pittsburgh region of PA. They were supposed to be preparing for an earthquake disaster; and we as students were brought in to create realistic wounds and injuries on the volunteer patients. It was a lot of fun working with that, but I don't feel too confident in our medical staff >.>. They got all kinds of confused. Just saying...

Late April I went home to see my family for a while since it was my B-day. I enjoyed seeing my parents, brother and sis and niece and my grandparents. :)

Now, what to say about May...May was hectic. It was the last month of my second semester at school. I had to get a lot of final projects done-- Hair and beards, Sculpture, Mold making, and Airbrush. That whole month was basically finishing up projects. However, the results of my stuff actually came out pretty good. I found out how much I actually love Sculpey and that I want to use it more and more for making sculptures. I also found out that ventilating Lord Yupa's beard is incredibly hard, lol.

I took off two weeks in between semesters at the end of May and into June. It was a much needed break for everyone. Spent the first few days at my apartment to just collect myself, but then I went home the second half of the break to see my friends and family. :).

Now, it's June. I've started my new semester with the resolve that I am going to spend more time on my projects and try to do a lot of outside projects to keep me going. It's less than 8 months before I graduate, which is REALLY SCARY, but I'm hoping to fine tune my skills before then and be ready to work once I leave.

In the meantime, I've set up a temporary portfolio site. You can find it here: http://mysite.verizon.net/vze15lp73/

I'll be using this blog as the blog and updates section for my site. So, you'll be directed here when you click the updates/blog link on the main site.

I JUST jumped on the band wagon. Got an account at forumspring.me Here it is: http://www.formspring.me/Ryaven

I want to have people ask me questions, but link it specifically to my website so that I can have legit questions get asked. Hope I haven't created a monster!

The whole thing with my site is, the Verizon site is temporary. As soon as I can I will be getting my original site up and running. That'll be my main portfolio site and I will move all my info to that one ^_^.

I plan on also getting another website because I don't want it to be cluttered. It will end up being my company website. With that, I plan on making a new ball jointed doll and resin figurines both painted and unpainted. How does that sound? I like the ring of it :). If the company gets some strength behind it, I want to travel to conventions and sell stuff there. Loads of fun!

As of this moment in time though, I have to get back to work on my sculpting. I'm making a Baku, or "Nightmare Eater". It's a bust of one that will later have a gas mask on it (because my teacher really wants to see it in a gas mask for some reason, lol).

As soon as I get that done I will be posting pics of it either on facebook or my website. I'll be putting up more pics on my website soon.

Ja ne,

Rya :)

Update for March 2010 (Let's see if I can do more than one this month, lol!)

So, what's been up on my end of things?

Last update was September-- so I'll start from there.

Started gonig to school- I've been here for 5 months so far, and it's really cool, I love all the classes and my teachers. This is definitely the kind of place I was destined to go!

So far I've learned how to do lots of makeup, both cosmetic and special effects based (got to make burns, bullet wounds, etc, so cool!)

I've also done a lot of sculpting. A looooot. I still haven't finished a lot of the projects I started, but I will do that in my free time.

Re-learned some anatomy in my Anatomy and Anthropology class. Suffice to say it could have been 2.5 hours long a week instead of 4.5 hours and I would have still gotten the same amount of info...

Toward the end of the semester, I got to help with a film that my teacher was co-producing. I liked it for what it was, a job where I got to be dedicated and work to make something that will be shown on film. However, I don't know if I'm made for the world of movies. The rigorous schedule that you have to go through is hard, and I was only doing a few pre-production effects!

That's why I've resolved to become a toymaker. I can utilize almost everything I've learned here so far and will learn and apply it to toys. My plan (a loose plan because concrete ones never work! lol. ) is to graduate, possibly take another semester with the Dorian Cleavenger program, go work for a toy company for a while, then go start my own company once I learn the ropes. I want to have a main part of it be a ball-jointed-doll company :).



That was just the first semester- I've started on my second semester now- sculpting, mold making/casting, airbrush, and hair & beards.

It's really quite spiffy. My teachers are all really awesome! I'm fortunate to have airbrush because most people in my class have to take "Art Appreciation" which is another name for art history, which is another name for BORING. I got to transfer out because I did my duty as an art student at PSU already, which required minimum 4 art history classes to pass.

Must say, I really enjoy going to class. It makes me feel like I'm learning and will actually graduate with a purpose. That's the beauty of a trade school- you learn stuff that will help you get a job asap in a small amount of time :).

I've met a lot of neat people at school, but much to my chagrin, there are a lot of other people who I just can't stand. Mainly it's because they're gore-hounds and care only about the blood and carnage that is in horror films. They don't want to expand into other genres and don't want to learn how to sculpt, which is a main part of practical special effects. It really bugs me that a lot of people are only concerned about style, partying, and getting drunk. If you're at this school, you should be here to work, not waste your life away. Hence, this isn't college, and really, you should be at least in your 20s before taking this program. You'll be more grown up, gone through life somehow, either school or just life experience, and more able to live with each other.

I've not had the best luck with roommates- they've made my life kinda miserable outside of class (see previous paragraph). I do still like my old roommates as people, but I could never get anything done when I was living there. There was also a huge blowup because I got diagnosed with asthma and they continued to smoke in the house (which, by the way is illegal in the contract we signed as roommates). My current one (luckily she's moving out this weekend), has too many issues to count. She makes my stomach hurt when I see her. Just the sight of her...because I just know she's going to stomp, slam her door, and in general just be a baby.

I musn't make my whole entry a rant about that though-- I do have some friends here and that makes me happy. I don't know how close I can get though since we'll all be graduating in less than a year and moving in drastically far and different places. (I'm not going to LA if I don't have to). I do enjoy thoroughly getting to see people here that want to work. I like hanging out with the later semesters whenever possible because generally they're good people who know what they want to do :).

I'm also helping with a student film this semester- making steam punk gadgets for a story that a classmate of mine wrote :). I'm excited, just have to get stuff started...


As for art and such:

I've been making plushies and such since I've been here. Whenever I get the chance I try to make plushies, clothing for dolls, and other stuff so that I can keep my crafting hands intact. I'm currently planning on making a whole show about Octopi/Octopuses, whever school of thought you attend. I want to do it as a multi-media show including plushies, sculptures, paintings, and illustrations. I've contacted someone about a gallery showing, but I think I should just call her.

Hoping once this weekend is over, I'll have a lot less tension in my life and I can start making more stuff for the show and for my etsy account. I need to open that up again since it's been closed up for a long time.

Rargh! Hope to be updating more!! I'm going to be posting pictures of all my stuff on facebook/deviantart/here once I get stuff together and get the internet. Can't wait! ;D

Ttyls.

An update?!?

Hey all, I'm updating tonight for some random reason-- guess I felt like it. There's been so much stuff going on since I last posted on here that it will take a whole other post to cover it >.< However, this time around I'll put up some stuff I put on my Myspace page. http://www.myspace.com/ryaven

Latest entry:

WAHHH!!! SO MUCH SO LITTLE TIME!
Current mood: sick
Category: Life

Hey everyone,

Just a little updatey on what's going on in mah life:

I recently (the beginning of this month) took a tour of the school I'm going to (at the end of the month!!!). I'm going to pursue a career in special effects!

And, before you all go and ask if it's computer graphics...I must say STOP! It is not computer graphic, but in fact, the awesome world of making masks, casts, body parts, props, and robots! Yes, you heard me right---robots! (well, that doesn't come til later). I'm really jazzed that I'll be doing a program wherein I'll get to sculpt and sculpt and cast and sculpt :D It's going to be so much fun!!!

And incredibly time consuming and impossibly hard, but it's going to be great :D. I want so bad to be involved in the movies or tv or some studio that does special effects.



I'm super excited about that all cause everything seems to be falling into place- all the financial stuff, housing, moving there etc-- there are even some good hardware and craft stores within driving distance so I'm not going to be stranded.

However, I'm incredibly sad at the same time. I'll be leaving all my friends and a big chunk of my family behind. I'll miss them all so much!!! But, at least I'm still going to be in state and able to come home sometimes. It's not a forever goodbye :)

Ugh...I have a nasty cold right now. My throat hurts, my sinuses are acting up, and my lungs are full of...stuff. icky stuff. Hopefully that all goes away by the time I move out.

Wish me luck! :D I hope to return as a cosplay queen and will help all my friends who want to make costumes with sweet masks, mods, and props :) and robots...

G'nite!