Yes, you can has Veggiemancer!

Hey all!
I'm back and thoroughly alive...sorry for the brief silence. I had the week off and I didn't really know what to do with myself during all the free time :( Still, finally I'm back in the saddle and character is back on. It was a relatively small load this week...just one character. We were asked to thoroughly research a culture of our choice, and then use the research to inspire a character design for the week. So I picked Russian, because I feel like I haven't done much in that way before. It was good fun. I looked into the Russian folk tales a lot and was really intrigued by the visual gestalt of Baba Yaga. So basically I set out to do a riff on that.
So here she is, basically a traveling asparagus-haired vegetable-lady with a magical swimming squash, a giant wooden spoon and, yes, tomato-bells! :) I think I could have pushed it further, but I'm pretty pleased with the result nonetheless.
It's been a crazy week.
I don't generally get too political online in any way shape or form, but I have to admit to a great sense of relief and excitement about the results of the election! I'm thrilled, actually.
On Tuesday night I walked out of studio and onto the Providence streets to be bombarded by a half-naked crowd of my friends whooping and hollering in the street. It was awesome. I ran downtown with them and eventually we joined a group of what must have been over a thousand college students to take the steps of the capitol building and show our patriotism. There was no fighting or contention...everyone in the city seemed happy to see each other. It occurred to be as I was standing with so many other college-age kids singing the national anthem that here is where the victory really is.
I think regardless of your political views you have to agree that anything that gets this apathetic generation on it's feet and passionately engaged in our country, not to mention patriotic, is HUGE. It's been a long time since I could feel unabashedly patriotic. I've always loved my country, don't get me wrong, and I am proud to be an American...but over the last eight years it's been hard (especially living overseas) to feel anything wholly positive about my country without a sense of irony. I'm not saying that's great...but it's true. And I think that's been the experience of a lot of my peers...we were predicted to be so detached and disinterested that instead of being involved with the election or voting, we'd be at home on our x-boxes. But voting was a proud and exciting thing to do...I saw many friends just standing in line waiting to cast their ballot, and the campus was abuzz with activity over the last few weeks. Rather than sitting slack-jawed before our x-boxes, Tuesday night I saw hope and excitement in the faces of an underestimated generation. That's just cool.
There's so much more to say about the whole thing, and I won't bore anyone with further blabbering, but I will give props to my Dad for writing a kickass story that's up all over the web!


Other than that, this week was RISD's famous Artists' Ball (masquerade dance extraordinaire) and I went as Buzz Lightyear with a huge group of friends all in Disney attire. It was a blast. I will leave you with these parting images:

rrrow.

-Nick