Day 5 The Part Where We Screamed... Part 2

Ok, wow, once again I go without posting for a while. I guess I'm just a bit slow. (And by a bit I mean really slow) 

Well, on the 5th day of my trip to the East Coast we visited yet another amusement park, this time it was Kings Dominion. Overall, Kings Dominion had much more intense rides than Busch Gardens.

The first roller coaster we rode was Volcano, it's a jet launch inverted (suspended) coaster, and easily my favorite in the park. It's kinda short but you're going so fast you can't even tell when you're upside down. The coaster is overall thrilling. What's better was the weather wasn't great so the park was near empty.

After a few more coasters and miscellaneous rides my friend and I decided to attempt the most intense and somewhat questionable ride in the park. Now, Intimidator 305 gets it's '305' from the fact that the first drop is a 305 foot drop at an 85 degree angle.

Now, the drop itself is fine, but afterwards the force and speed cause you to black out a bit. Not fun. It gave me a pretty bad headache later on in the day... that is after we rode it one more time. After that ride I think it was official that my friend was now a thrill seeker, despite just starting to ride roller coasters and thrill rides the day before.

With all the rides done for the day, and my mom and I having a headache, we decided to go towards the less intense attractions. One of which was a replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Once we got up there, I was able to get some amazing shots of the park and the previous rides we rode.

With us being extremely tired we left Kings Dominion and got into the car for a 4 hour drive up to our nation's capital! Washington D.C.

The Progression of: Gears

Well, another piece of art finished, another chance to post the work in progress pictures! (I love work in progress pictures)

Started out with a rough colored sketch and a reference for the tattoo on her shoulder.

 On the left you can see my skin tone palate. That's for when I start shading. The top color is the lighting color, next is base skin tone, then as it goes down it gets to the darker shading.

Done with the base Vector and worked on the hair detail. 

Shaded everything then went back to clean it up and smooth parts of it.

Added a background which was actually my original sketch that I tinted and cleaned up a bit.

Day 4 The Part Where We Screamed... Part 1

Wow, sorry for not posting for so long. I've been a bit busy with a Robotics class... but more about that later!

Right now, it's time to continue my vacation story.

On the fourth day we visited the lovely Busch Gardens in Williamsburg.

We started the day off with a water ride... Lovely. Sure, it was 107 Degrees Fahrenheit, but first thing in the morning with a water ride? Not my kind of thing. But, my friend wanted to ride this really badly, so we did. 

After a few more rides we went over to ride Loch Ness Monster. It has two inversions with a top speed of 60 mph. Now, this roller coaster is really important to me now, because it was my friend's first roller coaster. As the title says, it was the part where we screamed.

One of the reasons it's special is because 2 years ago I made a promise to him that I would take him on a roller coaster. Another is because this started his obsession with thrill seeking. Which, for someone who never leaves the house (like me) is a pretty big deal.

Sadly, it started raining later in the day with thunder so the park shut down... But that gave me a great chance to take a picture of the white rapids ride... Despite it being empty.

All in all, Busch Gardens was awesome and I really wish I could go back and ride more roller- oh wait. The title says part 1! That means there must be more! Yes... yes there is... But not Busch Gardens! 

I'll leave you with some extra pictures while you wait in anticipation for the Part Where We Screamed Part 2!

Days 1-3 The Beginning and The Beach

Alright, so you know how in one of my earlier posts I mentioned something about having pretty awesome plans? Well, this is one of the posts about them!

Last week I visited the East Coast, more specifically Virginia Beach.

The flight out was pretty uneventful and long. We took off at 5 AM PST and landed around 11 AM. Unfortunately, we landed in Baltimore so we had to drive down to VA Beach which ended up being around a 7+ hour drive. 

The next day I met up with my friend who I was visiting, and we went to go see Hunger Games at Cinema Cafe. See, up in the Northwest we don't have Cinema Cafe, so the whole concept of eating while watching a movie was pretty awesome.

After spending the rest of the day after the movie chilling, we decided to visit the beach the next day.

We only spent a few hours down at the beach, but that was enough time to chill in the ocean and take pictures! (not at the same time of course) 

I honestly could've stayed there for a while, but a ton of jellyfish started coming in and when I felt them I started flipping out. They weren't harmful, really, but it was enough to make me wade for my life.

Music Spotlight: Chameleon Circuit

This week I want to share with you all a band that I recently discovered (despite my Whovian friends telling me constantly about them) and absolutely love!

Chameleon Circuit gets their name from the show "Doctor Who" which is rather fitting considering that their songs are inspired by Doctor Who. For those of you who aren't familiar with Doctor Who it's a British sci-fi show about an alien that travels through time in a box and saves the universe multiple times!

Well, enough about Doctor Who for now, but more about the music. This music, to me, is absolutely awesome and I love listening to it so I can pick up the references from the show. Oh, and of course the music itself is good as well.     

Enough of my rambling, you can find Chameleon Circuit's music here: Chameleon Circuit

For those of you that are Whovians, here are some of the songs to geek out over! If you're not a Whovian, just enjoy the music and think about watching Doctor Who, for it's a fantastic show.

Two Year Mark!

So, it's time for my annual progress picture of my art! Every year around this time I try to finish one piece of art that I'm decently proud of. Why? So I can do an [Insert Year Here] progress comparison! 

I got my tablet two years ago, and I personally think I've improved quite a bit. 

Music Spotlight: For Orchestra

Another week and another time for a music spotlight! This time it's Walt Ribeiro, known for his music re-imagining under 'For Orchestra'

The whole idea behind For Orchestra is to re-create songs as instrumental mixes. The songs range from common day pop songs to songs you would really only know if you were really involved in internet culture. The songs are really imaginative and truly could be pulled off by an orchestra if sheet music was made.

This concept really interests me and I'm always excited when I see a new song pop up on their Soundcloud page which can be found here: For Orchestra

Here are a few of my favorite songs that they re-made.

Street Fighter's 5th: Guile's Theme vs Beethoven For Orchestra by ForOrchestra Daft Punk 'Harder Better Faster Stronger' For Orchestra by Walt Ribeiro by ForOrchestra Aha 'Take On Me' For Orchestra by ForOrchestra