I started classes at UMASS, but it was HELL. I had a number of medical issues which hampered everything, until I had to drop out of nearly everything. But, I kept the video class and my Work Study job.
Then, to make matters more absurd, my daughter had a life threatening condition and had to get a double blood transfusion, so we spent the entire weekend and most of Monday at The Tufts Floating Hospital in Boston.
I almost took her to the emergency room on Friday night, and she was slowly bleeding out to oblivion.... So, in order to cope with the entire nerve wracking situation despite the nerve wracking month of anxiety, insomnia, and severe depression I grabbed my sketchbook.
And this Mori sketch decided to sketch its self out onto my paper... it changed a number of times before it became this. I tried to keep it simple... I actually lost a lot of interest in it about halfway through, but Instagram seemed to like it somewhat.
But, Id already been on a SciFi futuristic kick the past few weeks, and as I was almost halfway doen with this sketch, I was already yearning for futuristic SciFi n Cyber Punk stuff, which was strange because I had been REALLY feeling this when I'd started it.
I could easily see this as an "Eyewitness" short from my other series revolving around mostly Lively. I could probably go several different directions with this, but especially if I had the right song or music.
However, I'm not so sure it;s really "fresh" or new, and probably is too similar to other things... I'm guessing... afew things come to mind...
if I were to get "Eyewitness" off the ground the way I want it to be, and perhaps is a fan-base liked this concept enough, I might actually create this as something...
I've agonized over a title, or at least a working title for my dragon film/story project since FOREVER....
And, for about a month now, I've been obsessing and agonizing over what to title the thing!
I was never satisfied.... or, I was.... but I changed my mind...
I was aggravated and frustrated with myself!
I just couldn't commit to it!
I would sit at my desk, or the sofa, with my notebook and writing, then rewriting the title, moving words around... It was SUCH A PUZZLE!
I could feel inside what I wanted to express or convey... but, putting it into words just right was a major frustration!
Too long!
Too short!
Too common!
Not original enough!
Doesn't coonvey what I feel quite right!
Doesn't sound right!
Doesn't have the right ring to it...
Sounds too much like a weird Japanese anime title....
It was absolutely a BRAIN PICKER!
So, I had it narrowed down a few times, before I would rethink it, and cycle back doing that....
And, I have a lot of intense trepidation about saying what I have decided on (SO FAR)... that, I've been stewing over it for over a week now...
I figure, it will most likely seem, or sound VERY STRANGE to probably EVERYONE
And, I suppose that ought to be expected...
It's VERY ME....
It's my work, and my project...
So, I figure it ought to be very unusual to pretty much everyone....
I just hope my artist peers & friends don't hate it... because that would really hurt...
I've been very EMO over it also.... :-/
Trepidation doesn't even begin to express what it feels like.....
Please don't hate me.
Each word is specifically, and carefully chosen, and have multiple meanings as well. I feel that much of my best work from my past often had better titles when I made more figurative or metaphorical tittles, especially my "Eyewitness" since the title can be broad or vague in a way...
The title its self is almost like a poem in a way....
And, even tho' it may sound strange at first, the story explains it later but only if one would contemplate it... so, it's typical of my artists & philosopher sides...
But, I guess, no matter what anyone does, there will be people that just don't like something... and that's to be expected... or they just don;t like it, because they just don't like me.... but, oh well...
Different people like different things... and that's totally fine.
There are a few things I'm very terrible at, and that includes designing architecture, buildings, and machinery... I eventually would need some help with an air ship design, and some building designs, because I am not good at doing any of those things... and some kind of vehicles, like cars...
I'm just not good at any of those things, and I'm rather terrible at 3D animation stuff. I'm pathetically awful at it!
But, I guess that's OK.... because you can't be perfect at everything.... and that's OK....
I guess somehow I'll figure something out one day...
Just, please don't be rude or nasty to me about it if you don't understand....
It's very true that people often fear what they do not understand... and people lash out at things they are afraid of....
I can very easily stand up to any argument when it comes to philosophy, politics, debating, and things of that nature that are logic or rhetorical based...
But, art is not necessarily logic...
So, if you are NOT an artist, or you are a comfortably well employed mainstream artist and you hate it, I would just kindly ask you to keep it to yourself, and don't bother me with your hate, or arrogance, or prejudices. I am not you, and I will never be you.
I'm just me. And, this means something to me.
I don't actually want my goal, nor my motives, to be money, because I feel it dirties and tarnishes it. I'm not opposed to money at all, and I'm many times over a capitalist and entrepreneur, I own property, and I'm also not against taking and making money at all.
But, I am against people giving me money to change what is MINE, to take away what is MINE, or to tell me what I should or shouldn't do merely because they gave me dollars.
It may sounds hokey or cliche, but I want my motive for creating my story/film/project to be LOVE.
And, if you DON'T like that, that's not my problem, but yours.
The love of my inner self, the love of expression, the love of freedom, the love of art, the love of telling a story, the art of creation and creating something. the love of DOING something, and MAKING something.
I just DON'T LOVE money.
I don't feel that way, and I cannot make my heart feel something it doesn't and won't.
I, of course, would spend my money on it if I have it... but, if I don't have the much money, I just don't care. I don;t want to be famous, and I don't want to be "a star", and I don't want to be what other people want me to be. That is THEIR dreams, and not mine.
I do NOT have a dream of conformity nor mediocrity. If that's what you believe that I OUGHT to do, just know THAT IS YOUR DREAM, or YOUR DREAM FOR ME, and it is NOT MINE. But, it is a dream nonetheless. And, an empty one....
My dreams are full.... and my cup runneth over....
It doesn't matter to me whether you understand, or don't understand....
No one understood van Gogh until after he died... sometimes, it just sucks like that, but oh well... Now, THE most expensive works of painted art in existence.
But, I'm also NOT van Gogh, I'm Kandice. And, that is OK...
I realize that I've published a lot of rough sketches, and old work here... and maybe that seems odd or strange.... but, I felt in necessary to show that I'm imperfect, and that people grow, and learn...
And, sometimes you gotta just start all over... somewhat... or at least partially...
I don;t know what to totally expect... and I'm not sure, totally, what the heck I'm doing... but, it seems to be figuring its self out, I guess...
So, I guess you we probably want to know what to title was, that I have made so far...if you've read this far....
So, I guess I ought to reveal it by now.....
Well, the title I've come up with.... that I'm sticking to now is:
忍 It was so much work, that you will never know, nor ever have seen, just to get to this specific title. Pages upon pages on ideas and rewrites and rearrangements...
I'm still looking for some of my old artwork... I don't know whether I will ever find it...
I'm not sure what I will do next... But, it just seems to be flowing on its own sometimes...
I was a very creative kid, and day dreamed often as a little child... but, I was much better at managing it, or multitasking while dreaming as a teenager....
I've worked several jobs in my lifetime, and have even been multiple times over entrepreneur since at least 1999 before I even knew what that word even meant.
But, when I started developing the dragon story concepts in college in 1999 I was already dreaming up things to do with Lively in the story... I actually have different stories which are not related, and in 2 of the stories I depict Lively as having a job. The job is very much based on a job I had in the 1990s in New Jersey working a the AMC Marlton 8. I was originally a concessionist, but I was also an usher. I refused to work the box office tho' due to health concerns.
Honestly, even tho' the work was often times hard, and could be demanding, and the pay was awful, I actually liked that job a lot. Not every day was perfect, but I felt so lucky and grateful to have that job. I stopped watching the X-FILES because of that job because I felt it was the responsible thing to do, and I also had college classes on the weekend in the mornings in Philly on Scholarship, plus had to graduate from high school... add onto that the Titanic! Yeesh!
I didn't have a lot of confidence for most things, altho' I think its normal to bluff about it when ur insecure. But, I actually pushed my way into keep getting the gig as the usher. I felt it was the position I actually wanted, and I hated doing concession even tho' I had the best sales record. The trick to up-sales was JUST FOLLOW THE RULES. DUH. But, being usher meant u had some of the most disgusting jobs, like cleaning up vomit, restrooms, bubble gum, and also dealing with hostile patrons.
Ushers seemed to be the "cool people" I guess, but so were the box office people whom often begged me to work with them since they were also often ushers, and with me.... also, the ushers were all young men, and really attractive, and funny. We were also very buddy-buddy with the security guards, and the Projectionists. Some projectionists worked either usher or box office, and when times were overwhelming, ushers had to take up slack for concession.
I must also admit to some egoism here... because, when I first started out there, I was like NOBODY even tho' I already knew some ushers, personally, especially since one was technically my ex... but, not that I was trying to.... but I did flirt with some ushers... however, they started it. You weren't really supposed to flirt with your co-workers... but, even subtle ways you could... I took a liking to 1, then others took a liking to me, probably because I took a liking to 1... then, one in particular really took a liking to me, probably to strongly, and too abruptly, and because of that, or him, I became included into everything, which also put A LOT of responsibilities on my shoulders.
Let's face it, the guy was an alpha male, at least within that circle anyway, and it was due to him that I began doing usher jobs... and, as to that part about the egoism... well..... underneath the supervisors and the managers, ushers kinda ruled... We carried a porter & broom, or a big friggin' flash light, or had access to industrial leaf blowers (Titanic crowd was the worst trash making bunch) . And, if anybody made trouble, we sauntered on over to them and gave them "the voice" or "the tone": "Excuse me, is there a problem here?"
Usually, that stopped everything... but, by holiday times you'd get people drunk or high, and stuff could turn into brawls, or nearly into Mortal Kombat, then security came, or cops got called.... Luckily that never happened... but, in a way, I guess I was somewhat on a power trip.... but, I wasn't abusive about it, at all, ever.
We also got to watch free movies. There were rules about it, but rules could be bent or broken on a whim... especially if the projectionist has a crush on you and begs you to "come help me with this".
It's probably the only job I actually liked, or enjoyed, even tho' I often had soreness in my feet.
The people would actually hang out, off the clock, and socialize, and it was very close and friendly. But, it was also a different world, and different era... So, I do, still, have a fondness for that part of my life even if things don't turn out so well in the end.... It is so very strange that some memories are so vague and I can't remember anything for parts of my life that one would think would be memorable... and, yet, I have SO many memories of that job, in such clarity and details, like it was yesterday. How very strange indeed!
The story I wrote "Lively's Mini Unicorn" is actually a cartoonish version of how I wrote/conceived of the story in the dragon project story...
So, anyways, Lively's working uniform is somewhat loosely based on the one I used to wear.
Actually, a friend of mine, from that old job actually did the voice to a character that Djehkäujaa was in from college.
His name was Bob. Actually it was Babak because he was originally from Iran, and "Bob" was the NJ nickname. I actually never knew he was Iranian for almost a year because he seemed like a really funny white NJ kid. I also didn't know I was older than him either until he showed me his green card. Such a funny guy! he used to tease me with the funniest jokes, and I would crack up with laughter!
Back then, in NJ, everything was VERY DIVERSE and a whole blend of all kinds of peoples.
I wrote the character based on him, because of a character design class at AIPH. My teacher, Sam, encouraged us to make characters based on real persons we knew. Bob liked Spider Man, American comics, and a lot of things I also liked, and he was just SO FRIGGIN' FUNNY that I had to make the character of him the way he is in the cartoon.
Unfortunately, some idiots on DeviantART thought I made a Skinhead character! WTF??? And, if got flagged and removed! Jerks!
I have since then, thought of making the character a black dude. That might actually make him cooler. I dunno....
I don't know what the heck happened to Bob, because we were always so cool as friends. He was even my first ever Facebook friend. He was always trying to be an entrepreneur since I knew the guy. But, out of the blue, he changed his name on FB to some nonsense random letters name, then deleted his account. I ran into him several times in NJ, and even got high w/him n some mutual friends via a relative of mine.
It was strange when he just up & disappeared off the face of the planet, because he even came up to Boston for a job interview and we were gonna hang out, but he got so high and wasted that he didn't show up... that was so unusual for him.... and, the last few times we talked on the phone, he was high as a kite, or drunk out of his mind...
I had a number of relationships from NJ around that time that also just seemed to bust like balloon... I've never understood why... I guess NJ people just did too much recreational drugs....
I often felt completely bewildered and confused, and didn't know how, nor why, it would just bottom out... and, there was nothing I could do about it.
If you've ever experienced the "Why me?" aspect of life, it often went that way... Honestly, I feel distrustful of NJ people now... :( It really hurts.
Found some old rough sketches. Just some rough, unfinished, or rough doodles. Not that great, actually... but, I figured I'd scan them for the heck of it...
It's all very rough, unrefined.
Anyways, I have rethought this stuff several times over... and I already have something reforming in my mind...
I don't have a set look for a love interest for Lively... I've redesigned it many times over, over the years. I think I should do more than one. And, I feel this aspect, for me, kinda has an almost European feel or vibe to it... meaning, the way European culture would portray the moods or presentations of the subject matter...
I think I prefer a more European presentation because of the subtleties and nuances.... like old comics from France, Belgium, or old German teen magazines... Not to dis Asian comics or novels, or American Comics etc.... I just don't care for their way of conveying moods or imagery... I feel that some Japanese or Chinese stuff is either too raunchy or to sappy or too emo or tragic... and never had a satisfactory ending...
American stuff usually leaves a lot of meaningful parts out, has way to much censorship, or cuts to the chase too fast, or drags things out too comically...
But, European styles of addressing emotions, intimacy, and even sexuality is much more beautiful, tasteful, and uncensored but not disgusting, or crude.
There's quite a good chunk of music from the mid-late 1990s that I feel very much fits the moods I'm going for... however, I want the music to be new and original, yet within those old styles...
The majority is electronic, but I also like some Tribal Fusion....
There is an album by Scooter called "Wicked" which really inspires a lot of the stuff for me... (among a number of other marvelous albums from that time period) but, I don't want my project/product to be a Scooter project. I want it to be Kandice's project.
Scooter is also 3 men, and yet my project is feminine.
I also like the music by Yoko Kanno in Macross Plus, which is unlike the music in any other Macross projects/films/series.
Yoko Kanno is very diverse in her music styles that I am often supersized to find a song I like only to find out later that it was by her. Her music is so diverse and eclectic.
I like a LOT of German stuff. This is one of those bands/groups that was really innovative at the time, and at 1 point did a whole album in classical music.
I do also like Blümchen (Jasmin Wagner) whom was my ultimate favorite in the 90s! But, I feel much of her music is more of a mood for Lively than for Djehkäujaa:
There's also a 90s album by Sarah Brightman that is quite lovely, and I also like the moods in it as well.
I also like the newer take on stuff, like Tribal Fusion. I really like Stellamara, and their Devotional Musical styles as well as their remixes, altho' they aren't 90s.
I am quite enamored with this lovely device: Roland Bassline 303 vintage (no longer in production). When it first released it was about $400 and now if you can get one, even a broken one, it costs THOUSANDS! Nothing else quite has THAT SOUND.
And...... I always wanted one of these KORG KAOSS Pads!
I also scanned some vintage 2007 rough sketches of Lively today Sorry, I lived in China several times in the GW Bush Era, so I often practiced Chinese. I was too lazy to edit it out. Just ignore it...
I have experimented with different styles including a more Disney-like, or a more anime or cartoonish look... mostly because I was thinking of a manga version for one of my stories... I guess it
Some of these sketches are incredibly painful to me.... In 2007/2008, I was trying to go to CALARTS and my friends in California were SO GOOD TO ME, and even tried to help me...
I kept struggling with my art, and I felt that it wasn't good enough, and I kept getting the proportions wrong because I spent too much time drawing furries/anthros the years before that...
I had several set-backs, including getting signed up for THE EXACT WRONG life drawing class to do a life drawing portfolio class in Cambridge for the Harvard affiliate Adult Education school. I needed a GESTURE quick poses life drawing class, and they put me into the LONG POSES class which was a a waste of time & money... I didn't even KNOW it was THE WRONG CLASS until 5 weeks in when I asked the instructor why he wasn't doing the gestures...
Basically, what happened was my spouse signed me up for the class, and his English wasn't very good, and when he was asking for the classes, he thought he got the right one, but didn't... and 5 weeks in, you can't get ur money back... they also drove a long time with me, and my portfolio all the way in Cambridge Boston and sat in the car at night, even in the snow, just so I could take THE WRONG CLASS.
I was so frustrated, and I often cried...I was so depressed, and even went through some very bad back-stabbing betrayals with a number of NOW ex-friends... plural.
I was also New Age "spiritual" back then, and it just seemed like everything was against me....
Then, literally, and actually, after I had already gone to California in the summer of 2007 and my 2 really great friends were so perfectly wonderful to me, and I came back to work on my portfolio, because CALARTS really liked me, the Economic Melt Down happened, and the Big Bail Outs...
I was devastated.
It was like everything I'd ever believed in was just shredded or nuked, and the fall-out hadn't even hit me yet...
I used to pray, and chant, and burn incense, and meditate... but, when it was all torn asunder, I couldn't meditate at all...
I used to have a Newspaper with the Front Page with the Headline "777" meaning the 777 point drop in the stock market for the DOW by September 2008.
And, from about 2007-2009 a number of relationships just popped off... some had to go, and others went badly without any warning... some people even died, or committed suicide, or lost their minds and became addicts...
When the stock market crashed, I KNEW it was ALL OVER. THE END.... that ALL of my work was in vain and naught... Our business and only JUST started to pick back up.... when everything just fell out...
I used to stay in bed crying from painful overwhelming circumstances... I felt so ashamed, and powerless...
And, when I sat at my business in the mall, with my sketch book trying desperately to DRAW, i was even more distraught to find that I COULD NOT DRAW.
I hope that YOU will NEVER KNOW what that FEELS LIKE. It's the worst feeling to ever experience...
No matter where you go, and what you do, that is always there... when you go into another room to get away from it, you find that you cannot... because you cannot escape it, and you cannot get away from yourself...
People are also incredibly insensitive... because if you have a young child, like I did, its as tho' you do not deserve to have any feelings, or dreams... and they will strait up tell you this to your face.
They will mock and demean you thinking its somehow helping you, and be completely oblivious of how sexist and cruel they are... they are even more obnoxiously rude if they also have a child, or more than 1 child, as tho' in their mind that somehow nullifies it...
They will even stoop so low as to say things nonchalantly like: "Shouldn't you go play with your kid?"
Meanwhile, everyone was leaving the state of Massachusetts that I was somewhat close to.... or lived far away... I had no biological family here, and my real friends (artists) lived far away....
I was very cloistered also....
All of this stuff is just so incredibly personal also.... I don't believe that anyone can understand it...
That one is actually based on a dream I had when I was about 6 years old. This story I re-did for my Eyewitness project concept work... but, I actually was writing it, originally, for my dragon project...
It could fit to either one...
I've written a number of versions of the dream I had as a child, and published various short stories of it throughout the internet since the 1990s. I have no idea what happened to them since then, tho'...
I've been going through a lot of my old sketchbook stacks looking for sketches of Djehkäujaa, but Lively is apart of that picture/story. I found a lot of stuff, and, some is terrible. I just want to scan it and show it, or put it out there, to prove its REALLY MINE.
Lively, herself, is is some ways like my own personal "Mickey Mouse", so to speak... to put it in an analogy:
Mickey Mouse is to Disney, as Lively is to Kandice Zimbleman/BlackUniGryphon.
I have been writing stories of Lively even before I even named her. I wrote stories about her in Middle School since at least the 6th grade, often as spooky stories, Halloween stories, ghost stories, or almost Alice in Wonderland or Oz type stories of stumbling into another world, or an unusual circumstance. She was a Disney princess, American Style Marvel Comics super hero/heroine, Star Trek science officer, etc.... But, in some ways she was like me, in the same way that playing with barbie dolls is also an extension of yourself.
I definitely played with Barbie dolls, My Little Pony, She-Ra action figures and I LOVED TO PLAY WITH Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles and X-MEN action figures! I had 3 brothers, and my cousins in Pennsylvania were both boys. The only neighbor kids we could play with on my street growing up were also only boys.
It was because of Star Trek TNG and X-MEN then Lively became 2 girls for a long time, throughout Middle School, and early in High School, named Hedrol & Kestrel/Kestra. She also had a friend whom lived in the woods that was named Osprey that was a Hippie that lived in the woods.
By the mid 1990s I felt Kestrel & Hedrol were too unoriginal, and too much like Marvel Comics & Star Trek and I often got nasty criticisms from some boy artists I knew in my town. So, I took out the wild stuff of Kestrel and stuff with the more trendy 90s fashions, yet some earthy adventurousness, and Lively began to really become something for real... at least to me, she was...
Some non-artists in high school, or ones I knew from middle school, would ask me: Who is that girl? What girl? That girl you always draw?
I thought it was a strange question for a non-artists, and so many of them, to keep having the effrontery to ask me such a thing! Why did she need a name? And, I also felt I clearly drew different girls at times....
This annoyed me... and many of my best ideas were things that annoyed me during Spring Break. Every single artistic breakthrough, or new thing I came up with always was during a Spring Break... except for Senior Year in High school...
I've told the story before, but Lively is a person full of life, and this was LONG BEFORE Pocahontas was a Disney film! But, I got the name from the REAL Princess Pocahontas which in her language means "Lively" or "Frolicsome". Or "full of life".
Lively is everyone's friend, a kind person, a strong person, and not held by gender boundaries. IN some ways like what the brand Barbie was meant to be.
BUT, LIVELY IS NOT A BLOND!
Lively, has NEVER BEEN, and NEVER WILL BE A BLOND!
I HATED the idea when I was a kid that BLOND was beautiful! That I wasn't GOOD ENOUGH as just me. I was also a fat kid in middle school.
I happen to think Brunette is BEAUTIFUL.
AND, Lively shall FOREVER be a Brunette BEAUTY. But, I have depicted her in different colored hair: black, brown, dark red, blood red, red brown, purple, blue, dark green, and anything DARK. NO WHITE or BLOND., and NO PINK! NO F@#$ING WAY!
I pretty much kept my hair as either natural or the occasional black in college because I F@#$ING HATED THIS PUSHED IDEA THAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO BLEACH THEIR DAMNED HAIR! Fuck ur chemicals! I grew out my hair long, natural for the most part, and if I ever used color in my hair it wasn't permanent. Fuck ur made-up marketing slogan "blonds have more fun"! Because I had more dates, offers, male flirtings, hook-ups and more, and I never once bleached my hair! I also wasn't racist, and was pretty equal opportunity in dating & hooking up with a diverse amount of men. The whole idea of "the all American" was so disappointing to me... And, yes, I even hooked up with sexy secular Muslim men in college. And, it was rather nice. :)
I kept getting Animation Scholarships at the UARTS in Philly in high school since I was a Sophomore. The animation teacher, Lowel Boston, kept giving me them, and they kept getting bigger and better... they often gave them to me TOO LATE, so I had to wait a semester or whatever.
After having gone almost EVERY SATURDAY (when I was actually enrolled into the classes) I already KNEW all of the Saturday classes' lessons, so I wanted to do my own thing. Many of the students already did whatever they wanted anyway, and the teacher Lowel was fine with that. So, I wanted to actually try to many something. that's when Lively began to really become a permanent thing in my life from then on.
Much of her distinct looks started at the UARTS, or when I was at home, designing stuff for my next projects to work on at the UARTS on the Penciltest Machine!
Animation is the greatest joy of my entire life!
Lively also helped me (metaphorically) create Djehkäujaa. Towards the end of high school, I don't know why, but I became SO ENAMORED with dragons! I went through a dragon phase as a little kid for a while, and also in 6th-7th grade.... But, dragons became such a thing with me, that I put them on my clothes, and next thing I knew fashions in 1999-2002 had Chinese dragons all over them for girls/women.
I could already FEEL a setting forming in my mind... and I already had my concept for "Eyewitness" starting... but, I didn't know what to do with it....
When I went to AIPH my friends Shannon & Kyle and their network of friends were all designing characters, and creating all kinds of wonderful things! Then, my characters really started to become a lot more to them.
And, my Character Design class with Don Bluth/Disney Animator, Sam Bullock, really made me develop the characters, and the stories.
Among the many things I wrote for Lively, including "Eyewitness", and the still Untitled Dragon Project, I wrote a little series for her called "Lively's Mini Unicorn" which is actually very funny and cartoonist, but also depicts the free spirit of Lively. I would like to rewrite some of it actually, but also to finish it. It's a totally different story than the Untitled Dragon Project, but a similar setting and place... I could easily see it as a novel series, but also as a manga (Japanese style comic book/graphic novel).
I'd published different versions of the first 3 chapters online on various websites since the early GW Bush era, then rewrote it and added new chapters on my Deviant Art gallery around 2005 or so... I actually really like the basis of the story. Its a mix of a few different influences from the time period, and it's both whimsical, magical, and silly. But, I think I want to remove some of the neo-pagan "spiritual" parts...
