Moving!

I would have loved for my blog to work out here, but I can not seem to muster up the time or patience to post here on this blog, and I have found it easier to work off of a website like tumblr, where I can just freely post to it.  It seems to be a lot more relaxing for me, and you will find sketches, completed works, and all other ways of finding me easier on my blog.  This blog is also going to be the launching site of my brain child Pickled Koi Creations, along with my partner in crime, Kevin Woldering also known as Luvythicus.  Together we have some great things planned for the next few months from dolls to toys, to prints and even more!  I am very excited for this new start, and it will be quite a site to follow.  So please join me, over at my tumblr space linked below.

Thank you for looking, and I hope to see you soon on the other side.

For my new art website, click here

Follow your dreams and always adventure on,

Michi Segal

The mind of an unraveling artist

I know it has been about a year if not more since my last post upon this blog.  I write this to those of you who will one day stumble upon this blog in complete and utter silence, which is rare for someone like me who can not function with out music.  But in order for my emotions to stay pure that is a step that I must take.

I am an unwinding unpredictable spiral of decay and depression.  I have been for quite some time now, each time I kick myself in the ass to get back up, I fall right back down into the pit from once I dug myself into.  This is nothing new, but with out the distractions from schoolwork and projects to keep me occupied I found out how raw and unkempt I have always been, and how I bottled up a lot of frustrations inside of me.  It became a nuisance.  A fly that would always buzz around me as I worked, at first it did not bother me.  I was gearing up to become something great, only to let myself down.  I got commissions, I did my piece to complete them.  I publicized myself between working a job that drains the soul from you every day.  Each night comping home the one thing you don't want to spend the rest of your day behind is just another computer, buzzing away on some project as that fly became a mosquito... and it grew... Each day becoming larger and larger it would not stop, it flew circles.  You start to realize that your deadlines you won't meet.  The faces of the dissapointment around you as you struggle with your dreams as the on lookers shake their head in doubt,  Another victim of the Art school crime.  Penniless, artless, nothing to show but some drawings and an empty degree.  People ask about your dreams to pat you on the head and say that is nice, as that mosquito is not a leech.  No longer just at your computer but in your head, in your hair, you can feel it crawl on your skin in everything you do, in every day of your life.  It grows.  Now you can't even bare to touch the stylus or the pencil, it holds it away from you, it keeps you from your dreams.... A wall... when you grasp the imagination away from that pool of disappointment and ooze... the self doubt and corruption of your own thoughts and fears crushing you under it's weight... struggling to push out the inkling of a line... Rushing....You spend every ounce of your energy just trying to fight it off long enough to at least grasp an idea... for it to drown you again.

Then you wake up... lying in bed, watching the time slip away as you continue to fight with yourself if making food even worth it anymore.  your heart and imagination struggle to lift the dead weight of your body from the covers, as your mind and self have given up.  You know that it is gone... You feel so alone... You have friends who smile and laugh, you laugh along pretending that nothing is wrong.  Avoiding awkward moments and uncomfortable stares, you keep the facade glued to your face of your happiness... Your family tries to help... but every word only hurts you more.  You are stabbed by the ones you love the most, but of course you don't have the heart to say it.

But then one day, you raise your voice.  You wake up one morning earlier than before to roll into work and have to teach people a topic you barely even know.  I always plan too much, I freeze up because I must plan in advance... and that's when everything changed.  FUCK IT.  there is no other way to say it.  No other polite way to get out of the bear's claws of anxiety attacks and emotional break down.  You break away for 2 hours, you strut your smile and you keep fighting to play like you know it, no scripts, no rehearsal, a grin from cheek to cheek not keeping you or your onlooker's down.  That was the day I no longer feared the crowd.  That bear shrunk in size.  You speak up in a meeting, your words hit the hearts of many... You say FUCK IT, stand up, share your thoughts, and its like a movie.  They clap and cheer, you playfully bow before having another moment in that meeting just moments later.  They look at you and smile. and that is the moment where tomorrow becomes today.  You break through your shell, only to emerge either the victor or mortally wounded.  I have wasted enough time staring into the screen of half finished pieces with emotions that I dare not wish to speak of.



So... Why do I bring this up?  why do I struggle on?  For those of you who can't because I know yesterday I did not see the strength that I had brewing with in myself.  It is time for one to get up and finally fight before the battle is over.  I have so much that I am now ready to show you, ready to show the world.  Starting what is now today, I will be finishing up last touches on older pieces that I want to showcase, but also post works that I will not finish at the current point in time.  The next 2 days is to catch up and build the things that I have not done in the past year.  I can't go on like this anymore, there is too much at stake for me to sit and continue to stare into the screen waiting for something to happen.  because here is the thing that I have learned....

YOU.  You have to happen.  Me.  I must happen.  I have the confidence to go on, and I have to fight off my demons to do so, and I know you can too.  We all have greatness built with in us, but only those who keep fighting will achieve.  So with a thoughtful post... and news to come in the next few days of my progress, I present to you with out further delay,  The life, the fights, and the continued struggles of Michi Segal,  Illustrator, Sculptor, Crafter of things beyond your imagination.

So I have been studying different kinds of digital pieces and this is one that I have been working on.  This lovely character whom I have names Knight, is one that I bought from LinGrimm over on FA http://www.furaffinity.net/user/lingrimm/

I have been wanting to do a digital sculpt of this guy ever since I bought him, and started in sculptris.  But I have decided to start again and redo him in Zbrush as my protoype practice of the Dynamesh feature of Zbrush, which allows you to sculpt freely with out needing to worry about the polygons becoming stretched and tangled.  This has been a good practice, especially on my new computer as well.  Here is a work in progress shot of him so far, he has feet!  at least his back ones.

I also added a work in progress shot of an illustration that I am currently working on for a contest I ran a while ago.  Erm I think that's about it for now!  Ill be around to post more about my older pieces and update about the new ones as well and with many more updates to come.

About time I started to upload my pieces to my blog.  This was the last piece I did, and I will work backwards from here, this was the Mad Hatter for my thesis.  I really wanted to do something more unique with him than your traditional hatter, But he was the hardest character for me to design. I looked up the history behind the hatters, and found out more about the diseases and mental illnesses that affected the hatters from the mercury and lead poisoning.  So this character is out of his mind.  I envisioned the whole tea party crew were just figments of his imagination that sat upon the table as objects that he thought were characters.  I felt like a mad hatter would also not know which way to wear his hat, so upside down it went.  My color scheme came from a weird location, as I found my inspiration in the colors of a moldy orange.

 

Looking back at the piece now, there are a lot of things that I think I could have done better, and I have some even crazier designs that I would love to sketch out.  But this piece was a huge stepping stone in the right direction for me.

God of Paradise

PHEW.  This thing was tough.  So I decided to make for my final digital modeling project a character from my wonderland thesis.  One of the flowers from the garden, and that is the Bird of Paradise, who I have dubbed God of Paradise.  She was a tough one to make, with plenty of mistakes a long the way.  Instead of working in Maya like all of my classmates, I took a bold leap and entered the world of zbrush, which is very fascinating and became very addicting quickly. 

This was my final design and images, having issues with my computer crashing as it could not export this massive sculpt.  I also made the mistakes of deleting the subdivisions once I has it all together because of a few errors I had made, so it became nearly impossible to place back into maya in order to animate and photograph it properly.  Overall I had a blast building her, and I can't wait to get a better computer so that I can dabble around in Zbrush some more.

Coming Soon

Coming soon....

UPDATES!  YAY! :D


I am just about done with finals right now, and then I will be updating about my process and pieces for my thesis, and some side work for assignments like this little number up in the top that I am putting together in Maya right now.  All the pieces are being imported from Zbrush where I will be putting the finishing touches on it~

Michelle

Cheshire Cat

Well this piece has evolved greatly for me over the past few months. This was the version I originally created for my senior thesis in the past semester, and was quite proud of it. After a while, I decided that I really wanted to change this piece. I had become unhappy with it because of how my other pieces were beginning to evolve. So that's when I began my plans of editing it.

I began to think of different ways I could portray my cheshire, and the ideas I had behind it. I thought more into the story of the Alice and began to reread through the chapters. I know i wanted to make it more noticeable as a cat like creature, or more of a cheshire in general. So I thought it was interesting the way that the Cheshire seemed to disappear at will. I began to relate the character more with a flame fickle yet dangerous, but easily snuffed. So i kept this in mind as I began to enhance the features of the cat.

This is the rough I began to work with as I continued to pace myself through my thesis. As I began to design the layout of the gallery space I was to be given, I then began to worry that my work was for naught. I realized that I would have 3 pieces with 3 accompanying sculptures, there would be no room for this lovely creature that I had begun to put so much work into. Then my inspiration struck. I would create a vector of my beloved Cheshire puss to apply to the wall as my logo. The hard work began, translating the work I was doing into the Graphic feel. I ended up with something to be proud of, Including my business cards to be completed.


I just sent the cards off for printing, and I am excited to see their return. I have gone through jpgprinting.com so that I can get a spot UV treatment on my cards. I can't wait to see their return!