Here once again updating my journal entry for those wanderers who manage to get lost on my page.

I moved out to Belgium some time ago and I’m proceeding with my plans…as soon as I get used to this place. The showers I take are cold the work I do is dirty.
I don’t really have all the fancy stuff in here, but at least I’m moving forward. I don’t really know other people from here than my co-worker, so the only walks I do are with my camera(all the other time I run). Even though it’s a really big noisy city, it’s really interesting and charming in its own way. Not to mention that I have freedom to move into other cities and countries nearby.

I’ll try to make a habit of walking around with my notebook just like I do with my camera. Then maybe one day I’ll be able to show my works prouder than ever before.

Btw. Now I can say that I’m from three places. Born on the side of Russia, from Finland and living in Belgium. The only country I’m from is the world itself.

I’ve been really busy with all my stuff. REALLY busy.

I just remembered how I used to feel about certain things years and years ago. About seven years ago I used to be amazingly enthusiastic about learning certain skills on PC(I call it “my hacker days”, because I wanted to become one). I still remember those evenings when I came home rag tired after 11 hours school days, started my computer and sat until 3.a.m practising. It didn’t matter how tired I was, or how busy, I just wanted to improve. I still use a lot of things I learned back then. So I’ve been thinking and decided why not going back to that and see where it takes me?

Yeah. Besides all that I’ve been learning flash programming once again. This means that soon enough I’ll start making own flash projects and upload em’ here. It also eases for me to create animated .gif –files, so I already started animating things.

The drawing is also doing good. I’ve been improving a lot. I sketch everything and as much as possible. This means capturing the life itself into the notebook. Also starting to learn how to sketch with both hands at the same time. I even had to dedicate a whole week to improve my left hands accuracy.

Besides all that madness I still plan on writing things. Unless I write it, I illustrate or even animate it.

I also have loads of new photos. Soon I’m going to live in Belgium for 4months. This will mean even more photography. While there, I’ll concentrate on getting improvements on all the other fields I’m doing. Now, more than ever, I believe in my cause.

I think it’s about time to reveal what I’m planning.

First of all, I trained myself to become both handed. This means that now I’m what is called ‘ambidextrous’. I intended to become ambidextrous artist. I learn things(everything I do, not only hand skills) the regular way and also in mirror -mode. I also learn to draw with both hands at the same time.

For the past months I’ve been studying more advanced drawing(and million other things as well). Why? I really think I want to tell stories with images. It’s not even that much about drawing, as it is to tell things with images. It’s been haunting me for way too many years now. I know EXACTLY what I would do if I had the right drawing skills, but I don’t. At least not yet, and to me, it’s like a cruel joke. I believe that anything can be achieved with hard practice, so I will drill down every imaginable aspect of drawing until I’ll get it the way I need it to be.

Overall I’ve become pretty much obsessed with everything. I feel like even ten lifetimes wouldn’t be enough for me. Anyway, I think it’s time to start moving on. It’s time of progress and time of change. Time to go completely mad!

Here’s the drill. I’ve made some progress all right, but planes don’t fly in space. I’m heading straight for the stars, so I’ll need to work harder. I’ve made far from where I started. I can still remember of not having ANY skills at all. Just to consider that I used to be the most unskilled kid, good only in getting into fights and losing them with the taste of blood in my mouth. Only thing I had was my spirit. And in the end, it’s the most powerful thing to have.

I’ve made tremendous progress in few months. I’m not the same artist as I was when submitting my last painting. Only to consider my improvements until then; is like a small pebble on the road to the mountains top. And still, I have a long journey to travel. It will take me about another two months until I’ll start submitting actual drawings again(however, few experimental works might pop up).

What else? I don’t want to speak about my plans until they’re realised. However, I mark my word that when my ‘art training’ is finished, something awesome and crazy will be revealed.


Also, I’m still feeling insecure about writing that book. I’m not sure if I have enough time to write it and I’m not sure if there’s any point in writing it since I don’t know if people really like my pieces or not. Maybe I should write more short stories and see if I should go on after some feedback(which I probably will never receive anyway[LOL]). Maybe I’ll end up drawing comics and write the book after(if) people like my storylines. Anyway, I decided to wait a while longer on this matter.

I just wondered why I write into the journal. I most certainly am a man of habit, so my own deduction would be it looks too lame if the journal remains off the date for half-a-year or so. In other words, it doesn’t matter if no one ever reads what I think and plan.

First things first. The book I’m writing is progressing slowly, dead slowly. On other half, I never give up, so one day it should be ready. Started writing again from the beginning(after looking through various writing instructions) in Finnish and decided that I could do the translation afterwards. Also, I’m studying old English and slang on my own, so I should be able to do a better translation when the right time comes. Unless, I’ll just hire someone to do all the boring job.

Got Panasonic DMC-FZ18 camera and already have taken tons of pictures, of which some are even worth uploading. This opens up huge opportunities to my disposal. Combining photography to photo-manipulation, there are no limits. I was thinking if I could create awesome photocomic. Maybe even turn one of my book ideas into this kind of telling format. Naturally, my movie making experience and Photoshop mastery would pay a great advantage.

It may look that I’m carefree and that things are looking bright, but it’s not really all that easy. I’m just learning to live my life while being busy(not busy yet, but I’ll be very soon). Most probably the photocomic -idea will go down the sewer for the lack of actors and lack of time. I’ll be most of my time at school doing double schedule. Not to mention that I’m not gambling on my health, so I’ll have to train somewhat during the school and at night before going to sleep. Luckily, I’ll spare some time on stretching if I’ll manage to get splits soon enough.

I have stories to tell, but no means to realise them. Drawing isn’t still out of option, so I’ll try that one as well. I started practising drawing more seriously than ever before, and also that’s how I’m intending to spend most of those long hours at school(assuming that exams are never a problem). Too bad I don’t have a drawing table to realise geometrical environments with all the various vanishing points, but I’ll see if I can do something with a regular ruler. ‘School-bench-comics’ may sound weird, but that’s what one got to do in order to fit ambitions into a busy lifestyle.

I reached 1600 visitors some time ago(how the hell did THAT happen?), and that’s almost a big number for slacking around on my account. Guess I could double that in an instant by plagiarizing(‘re-drawing’ ) someone’s works on fan-art –section, but that wouldn’t be modest from my point of view. What I could do(and what I do), is that I add little things from time to time, while working on a bigger scale in the background.