We went through my portfolio and talked about the pieces and the kinds of work I’ve done. They asked me some good questions about my career choice:

• What software do you use?

  I use the Adobe Creative Suite, which is the industry standard. That includes Photoshop (for picture-based work), Illustrator (for vector-based work), InDesign (for page-based work), AfterEffecs (for motion, animation, compositing), Dreamweaver (for writing websites), Acrobat for editing PDFs together, and Flash for, obviously, flash sites. I’ve been asked which my “favorite” is, but that always strikes me as an odd question. They’re very different workflows, so I use whichever is most relevant to the project at hand, and I try to use them together on projects to get the best results. However, to answer what the question was probably trying to get at: I’m most familiar with PS (I started on v.3, that was a long time ago o.O), but I think Illustrator tends to fit my style better.

  I also use Cinema 4D for 3D work. I’m not sure that’s an industry standard, but it’s what’s taught at RIT and it has a good learning curve for the casual modeler. Last time I tried Blender it wasn’t very friendly with me :(

  I’m a fan of TextEdit for my personal note-writing needs (do you really need all that autoformatting?), but otherwise I kind of alternate between NeoOffice and MS Office for more documentationy stuff.

• How “lucrative” is new media design?

New Media is actually a pretty lucrative field. At least that’s what my professors claim. According to Coroflot’s design survey, Design Management (so making sure all the artists produce matching work) and Interaction Design pay the best. My understanding is that this may not be a spectacular salary by, say, engineering standards, but I can make pretty good money with less time at college, and pretty much all design relating to the intarwebs pays better than non-digital design. Bottom line: go into internet media and you’re unlikely to be a starving artist.

• What do you like best about the field?

I really enjoy spreading information and education. There were a lot of reasons I went into design, but one of them was that I hated seeing all the ugly phonebook ads and flyers around town. Such an inefficient attempt at getting their message out! With minimal training in design, information becomes insanely more understandable.

Like a lot of Uni students I have a wide variety of interests, and NMD is very good at letting you spread your skills around and work with other fields. While I was developing my interests, I was encouraged to study programming, print design, web design, drawing, 3D, and animation – which spans a pretty big range of skills. Other fields really don’t encourage, and even force you, to keep up with your education as much. Neither do they allow you to have your fingers in as many subjects.

• What kind of clients have you worked for?

Mostly it’s been small local businesses that need to get their word out. A local burger joint, a sewing supply shop, my church, the campus medic service, etc. They’re nice to work with and it’s fun to see their business grow from my help. Not as glamorous or high-budget as bigger places, but since it’s just been me doing all the work I’d rather be doing this kind of work than something more high-pressure.

• Can I email you questions later?

Of course! I love answering questions about what I do, and giving advice. :) Sometimes I get long-winded though…

• What kind of portfolio did you have, going into college?

Ooh. good question… my portfolio was pretty bad, and the people at portfolio review days didn’t hesitate to tell me. My drawing teacher freshman year asked me, in genuine curiosity, “how did you get in with this?” after seeing the work I had done in his class. But as it’s college application time, it is with some embarrassment that I link you to my portfolio. Evidently it was good enough to serve my purpose at the time, maybe it will help the applicants of this year.

1. Admiral Adama: This guy is the Chuck Norris of the science fiction world. Remember that movie “Stand and Deliver” about a math teacher who convinces a whole class of low-income hispanic students to learn calculus? He was played by the same actor. This guy can kick the butt of anyone who needs it, command the remnants of human civilization to Earth while being chased by the murderous Cylon fleet, and still have the hearts of his crew.
2. Captain Reynolds: I think Mal has so much character that it makes up for other deficiencies of awesomeness. He swears in Chinese, picks fights with anyone he chooses, and generally has no regard for anyone. No matter how much of an idiot he’s been, he can always win with panache.
3. Captain Sisko: hah, yes you read that right. Benjamin Sisko comes in ahead of both Kirk and Picard in my book even though some people will tell you he is not a captain. He combines the best of both worlds (so to say), is able to negotiate civilly with Dominion agents, shout down a misbehaving officer, get into fistfights and negotiate bureaucracy, and does all of this with a more consistent character than some other fictional leaders. Also he is scary when he gets angry, which I can’t really say for the other captains.
4. Captain Picard: my mom will disown me if I list Kirk first, and anyway I think Picard has a lot more dimension to him. Less of the “we come in peace, fire all phasers” attitude as well as less skirt-chasing. On the other hand, less kick-assery, so this is a close decision.
5. Captain Kirk: he’s a classic, but I mostly find him amusing. I guess it’s hard not to be when you’re wearing a shirt that looks like the top half of a bathrobe and 1960s flared crop pants over boots. And when you can’t speak a whole sentence without … pauses… for dramatic … emphasis.

Those are the regulars I can think of. Did I miss anybody?

Second was the assignment to make a window skin to cover half their custard display cabinet. Since they have a limited number of flavors, they wanted something pretty to cover the empty part of the glass shield. I brought Chelsey Tyler back on board for this one since we were on a tight schedule and she did such a great job before. I sent over rough version of what I had in mind, she followed that up with a more creative sketch with all the shading and perspective in place, and then I went back over it to “ink” it in Junior’s two-color scheme.

The goal with this was to continue the modernized “Golden Age of America” aesthetic while reminding Junior’s loyal customers of their homegrown local pride for farming and the Illini.

Anyway, the Myst Online: Uru Live community calls itself “The Called,” similar to the way Star Trek fans are referred to as Trekkies. The term comes from a speech by Yeesha, the Grower, who (in game mythology) will rebuild the destroyed D’ni civilization. The MMO, Uru, presents the idea that Yeesha will regrow D’ni culture using the Called, who are humans that feel mysteriously drawn to the underground Earth cavern where the D’ni lived. There has been quite a bit of debate, I understand, as to how this would happen in the real world. I think the consensus is that it would be a kind of genetic memory like salmon runs or something, and that only part-D’ni humans would return to the Cavern. The question is then, since the D’ni were sealed in their cave until the Myst series starts, when would they have shared genetics with humans?

Well, after careful reading of the Riven journals, it seems Cyan gives us the answer. Both Catherine (the wife of the hero, if Atrus can be called a hero) and Gehn (the antagonist) mention in their journals that the natives of the Riven islands take to D’ni technology and ideas very quickly. Both characters speculate if perhaps the Rivenese have some D’ni blood (presumably the D’ni had long ago created a link, now lost, to Riven or something).

Once we establish that the Riven natives have D’ni blood, the question becomes simple. Catherine wrote the Star Fissure into the Linking Book to Riven. Although it appears to be a fissure from the island directly into space, it allows matter to be “hospitably exchanged” between two Ages, like a wormhole – and as we know from Uru, the other end of the Star Fissure is at the Cleft, right next to the entrance to D’ni.

When Gehn was first trapped on Riven, he did a bunch of inhuman tests about the Star Fissure, which included flinging Rivenese miscreants in and seeing what happened to them. Of course, since things, including Atrus’s Myst book and people, get direct transportation from Riven to the Cleft, 18th century Earth now has D’ni blood via the Rivenese immigrants.

And through science fiction magic, some special people feel called to the Cleft to start a journey to rebuild D’ni. Which explains why some people are such big Myst fans. It’s our genetics.

Well I think it’s cool, so there.

He was so wiggly that I had trouble tracking him and keeping him in the frame long enough to get nice in-focus pictures of him. I think that since smell and touch are the only senses left to him, he had to keep his nose in constant motion to know what was going on.

Anyway, adorable ferret pictures resulted all the same. I guess if you push the button enough, some of them are bound to turn out well, right? ^_^

Dandin escapes his clothes!

Peggy & Dandin

Trying to get him in his clothes.

A fur collar?

Peeking out of the box

Bowl o' Ferret!

Pausing to smell the flowers

I think this picture describes the slippery little weasel.

Peggy and her man

Delivery for you!