I mentioned upheavals in my life. One is personal and this is not the forum to talk about it in. Another involves a huge shift in my life, which I am determined to get completed by the end of the year, God willing. To end on a high note, the last thing involves me going back to school, which, although intimidating, is also incredibly exciting at the same time.

So, where does it leave my art? …on the backburner, unfortunately. GUARDZ will have to wait, art will have to wait, everything will have to wait, until I can get the rest of me back in order. It probably won’t happen for a long while, but it’s best if I just take it step by step and see where the future leads me.

And of course, pictures!

More pictures at my Flickr page.

As I’ve noted, I got sick this month, (did I mention twice? Just checking.), so it has put a pause in my latest GUARDZ! comic. I have a new one queued up, which will be completed in February. In the meantime, I have been working on this piece, which was inspired by the Wipeout games that are on the Playstation consoles. This one should also be done soon, but here it is, as a work in progress. Enjoy!

It’s still January, so I still have time to get this list out. So, here it goes, and in no particular order. I’m wondering if my opinions will change at all when the clock strikes midnight on 2011, but I think this will be a fun little exercise on expectation and disappointment.

(side note: games such as Final Fantasy XIII and Bioshock 2 did not make this list simply because I don’t have enough information on them, at least not enough to get excited about).

1. Mass Effect 2 (videogame, Xbox 360)
2. Heavy Rain (videogame, PS3)
3. God of War 3 (videogame, PS3)
4. Gran Turismo 5 (videogame, PS3, tentative)
5. Siege (Marvel Comics event)
6. The A-Team (movie, June)
7. Clash Of the Titans (movie, tentative)
8. Tron: Legacy (movie, winter)
9. Iron Man 2 (movie, winter)
10. Alan Wake (videogame, Xbox 360)
11. Lost (TV, final season)
12. Mod Nation Racers (videogame, PS3)

Virginia Beach Sunrise

Let’s face it: traveling is expensive, and vacationing is equally expensive. With the economy just inching back into some state of stability (only to become shaky a few weeks later), one may think that it’s hard to do accomplish anything in the few scant days that qualify as a break from work. Vacationing on a limited budget and within a limited area hardly seems like a vacation at all.

Yet, it seems that I’ve traveled more this year than in previous years. Because we’ve had to be creative in how to stretch our dollars, we took a long, hard look at what was in our back yards, and actually discovered a vacation lurking in our back yards, vacationing in our home state. It’s one thing to travel far away from house and home to discover the new and exciting, it’s simply a revelation to discover it right underneath your own nose.

And we don’t seem to be done yet. There’s still a wealth of sites to see here in our back yard that is the state of Virginia. We’re definitely going to plan on it.

See more of my vacation pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rbasallote/

After a 3-year+ hiatus, GUARDZ! The Comic will be returning on it’s regular, not-quite-monthly schedule. After some consideration, I decided to stick to my old webcomic instead of coming up with a new one, and I have a ton of old and new material to work with so I should be able to stick to some sort of regular schedule. No school means more free time to work on my comics!

You can see all the old stuff at guarzthecomic.com

I’m still working on a few pieces, and I’ve been itching to get back into the tools I know and love. In the meantime, you can see more of my effects work at http://www.youtube.com/user/roqueb

This is a “painted” version of my original Kendra Keel sketch, using Painter IX. I started this color version of my sketch with a Wacom Intuos3, and I finished it with an Intuos4 S (a gift for my birthday).

Ninja Woman

Here’s my one of my first efforts using the suite. I’ll have to admit, there’s more life in this picture after processing it through CorelDRAW. I can’t wait to try this on some of my comics.