Volunteer, Advocate, Trekker.

First, Panda eventually unknowningly convinced me to get a Tumblr through her reposting things on Facebook and I eventually wanted to know what this thing was. Now I go to it daily - there's always something entertaining on there. ( My profile, name is AJHalliwell of course .) First cool picture I want to share: Sunday night while watching Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (which, by the way, is the most awkward of the Harry Potter movies. There are so many awkward scenes, between poorly made [IMO] romantic scenes and just odd conversation that I don't think was carried out properly.) The best of which would have to be the Girl drama while Ron is unconcious, while ALL the teachers are there just silently watching it play out. Prof. McGonnagal shooting her head back and forth like a Tennis match and Snape's stone-solid face, to Dumbledore's eventual "Oh, to be young..."  But I'm getting off topic: What I'm trying to say is back when I read t...

Ello, readers. Well, It's been kind of a hectic semester, filled with things I am not quite at liberty to blog about all the time - so you'll have to forgive the lack of postings. But stay tuned! Never know what adventures are just around the corner. Well, firstly: I finished that Magic School Bus/Pokemon drawing and even colored it in a way I was happy with. Submitted it on a DeviantArt contest . But for those who don't keep track of my life, in ASG I've been working on quite a number of projects. As chair of the Facilities and Services Committee, I've been responsible for coordinating the Safety Walk (and all future ones); I'm trying to turn all the campus bathrooms "touch free" that means sinks, soap and paper-towel dispensers so you don't have to touch anything; I'm looking into green-ifying the University's building policy, which I have to say has been lacking -- but the Vice President of Capital Planning has said he's just wa...

Hello avid reader! Whether you care or not, I'm going to talk about: the fact that the Vulcan medical poster I've been working on is complete! I'm so excited :D I'm sure you know by now that I love things that make fiction seem real -- and in line with this, I've always wanted my own Star Trek props!!! Since the actual ones can go for thousands of dollars, and I am a poor college student, I must be creative and make my own: and designing a poster is pretty easy, especially when I've been practicing with Inkscape and Vector art for the last year. (To the right of the right-most Vulcan's head) Screen cap from "Stigma" This idea started as a poster seen in the background of the ST: Enterprise episode "Stigma" at the Vulcan offices at an alien Medical Conference. It may have been reused again in a later episode , in the background of a Vulcan ship's sickbay. (Oh hey look, it was!) (To the left of T'Pol's head on ...

Haha, as you may remember -- like a year ago, I had the urge to try my hand at various digital art forms and bought a pen and tablet. Well, as you may have predicted, I don't really break that out nearly often enough. Especially since the day after I bought that, rather than "drawing" style art, I found a free program to do vector-style art -- which I gotta say I'm much more interested in. And lately, when taking a break from ASG, CKI, class and the stresses of my life -- I've been trying to do artsy things! Here are some completed stuff and works in progress. First of all, this next image is NOT my creation. There is a book called the "Star Trek: Encyclopedia" last updated in like, 1997. In it are thousands of illustrations, some of them of uniforms/costumes. I gotta say, my artistic attempts are not so often "creating new stuff" as imitating stuff I like. And I like these illustrations, they are just non-detailed enough for their purpose...

Trying to do artsy things in the time I find by myself. I have so many interesting things at my disposal, I really want to use them all as much as they deserve. My drawing pad, my subscription go the Star Trek: Online game, etc. So I start to write this on Sunday morning (where I have plenty of time to myself at last) and I thought I'd throw in some quotes I found interesting. Quote of the Day: "To keep your sanity and balance, break your own rule every great, long, once in a while." - Blog featuring the drawing program I like to use. Another one comes from a Star Trek book I'm reading. (I bought 5 Star Trek books while I still have my Borders Rewards card. $60+ value for 10 bucks, free shipping! I'd say that wasn't too shabby.) Top left and top right have already arrived. I've actually owned two copies of the middle book already, one fell apart in like 2003, the other lost in the fire :( But this copy was a whopping 1.04 so yayz! "The peo...

Haha, stole that while googling and trying really hard to come up with one. Well, I've now had my drawing tablet for 2+ weeks, and what do I have to show for it? Tools don't improve talent, they allow it to improve itself. I dunno what I think of the art I've made, almost all of which has been Star Trek-based, lol. But one thing is for sure: the more I use it, the more I understand it. There are left-side of the brain thinkers, and right-side (or at least that's what Facebook tells us--) I def believe myself to be the logical, analytical side over the artsy, musician side - so maybe I'm not meant to be a great artist. One of my personal goals in life is to kinda be okay at all skills that interest me. Like fencing, water polo, or Sail-Boating! A website I'm a member of is DeviantArt, a place for people to post art they make and get critiques . Panda actually  introduced me to it back in the day when she would send me there to see her art all the time (I wis...

So still on the Star Trek kick. Now, since the first time I saw Star Trek - the Voyager episode "Night" c. June of 1999 by the way -- I have loved the graphics on that show. Star Trek has been at the forefront of computer graphics since the original series. Things that look silly now, were the most groundbreaking (on a TV budget) effects television has seen. But now, living in the age when anyone with a laptop can pretty much do anything with graphic design, I wanna see what I can do! Express my own artistic talent so to speak. I am not interested in art enough to want it to be my career, or even a hobby I take too seriously -- there are plenty of people that pour their heart and soul into this trade and I wouldn't want to take an ounce of praise away from them, cause they deserve it. With me its more of a passing hobby, one of the millions of aspects of the world I would like to know enough to get by in should I need to/for the heck of it. " Termites of Loracus...