So there's been some stuff I've been throwing on instagram that's art-related. Like sketches and shit... Stuff I'm too lazy to scan in. Wish there was some sort of deviantart/instagram integration thing. That would be pretty neat.

Anyhoo, my username's "Joey_Zero"... Here's a link to some web-viewing page for instagram. You can see some of the shit I've been doing.

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Wow, this month's always a wallet-killer. Too many good games come out every year around now. I'm currently grinding the crap out of Borderlands 2. Finished with Zero, now rocking Maya, and am up to around lvl. 20 with her. This game is so much fun. Even more with other people.

Dishonored looks excellent. Think I'm gonna have to trade in some stuff though because I already pre-ordered and paid off AC3. I can't effing wait for that game.

What're y'all playing?

Anyone know of any other good stock sites with people? I usually love digging through the stocks on here, but lately it's all been pretty much the same stuff.

It's been so long since I just took a bit to sit down and throw some thoughts down on these journal things... I used to have more time to collect thoughts on things that I liked, hated, etc. Feels like I'm just keeping my head above water at this point. Maybe it's a getting older thing, but the days, weeks, and months just blur together now. There's next to no time for reflection anymore. I kinda think that's harmful in a lot of ways.

Work is... Well, work lately. It is busy as hell, and it is always busy as hell- I like constantly having stuff to do, but the only thing about this is when my group busts our ass to get rush work done, under extremely challenging our even unrealistic deadlines, it becomes the new standard for turnaround. That shit isn't really cool, but at the same time, we're not in a position to stop it. It sort of mimics how things as a whole have become. Everything has to be instantaneous in society now, or it's too slow. Unfortunately this is a blanket practice, which really fucks with the creative process, at least professionally speaking. We have next to no time to work through real design filters and are expected to just turn a switch on and off, like we're running fucking numbers or some sort of other applied skill profession. It's pretty stifling. It makes me remember how difficult a manual labor job was physically, but how much easier it was to leave work AT WORK and not worry about it til 8am the next day, you know? Not to mention, my creativity, inspiration and motivation all tend to work on one parallel- so if I get completely drained from it at work, I have 0% left to work on personal stuff at night. It's really easy for people to say, "just suck it up and do it", but it's not that simple- I'm sorry. Our brains are constantly going, even when we sleep. If I'm stressing about a project or something like that, even after I pass out, I dream about it. It's impossible to escape. I honestly sympathize with artists that go off the deep end, snap and go crazy. If their outlet is obstructed in any way, it's easy to see that happen. So yeah, the decision to be a professional artist/illustrator/creative/designer is mine to handle, and I do question if I made the right call. There are plenty of redeeming days, but when I start to wander and think of doing this 20 years down the road and even until I call it quits and retire- I dunno. I will never stop creating, which is why if I ever decided to go to a different career where it's not so taxing on my creativity, I might be able to get back to doing the cool shit that I wanted to do. Who knows.

Outside of work, I've been doing things to at least improve my health and mood. I've drastically changed the type of stuff I eat... Really getting into better planning and things like that. I've been working out a ton. After the first week and a half of changing that all up, I dropped 10 lbs like that. I sort of leveled out, but I feel a lot better. I want to get at least 20 or so more pounds cut out, and then shape that shit up so I can feel like I used to back in the day. I don't think I'll be able to do standing flips and climb up walls and trees and shit like I used to, like a fucking rabid spider monkey, but as long as I get close to that, I'll be happy. I need to find some better routines for that... I just do a good half hour to 45 minutes of cardio, then hit the weight machines. But I need to find a better way to drop some more weight.

Aside from that, I haven't been gaming as much as I used to, but I did run through a few games... The most recent being Dragon's Dogma and Lollipop Chainsaw (still gotta finish the latter). Dragon's Dogma was a blast. I ran through it once and got 3/4 of the way through a second playthrough. Gotta pick that up again. Such fun. I'm DYING for AC3 to come out. Nothing better than that gameplay mixed with history so close to home. A lot of the game literally takes place in my backyard, which has got me so fucking psyched.

Been trying to get back into comics, but it's slow-moving. It's tough to figure out exactly what I want to get back into... Without blowing a bunch of money.

I'm trying to find some new tunes too... Recently I've been listening to new Oddisee, Homeboy Sandman, Apollo Brown, Tanya Morgan, etc... Just keep trying to find that new NEW shit that'll have me listening for weeks.

Pulled some tickets for Louie CK in the winter. I can't wait for that. The new season of Louie has been hilarious so far. And he's one of those dudes that's always doing new shit every time he tours, so that should be great.

Think I'm going to see Ted this weekend... Anyone seen that? A bunch of people told me it was funny.

Anyway, that felt good. I miss talking shit.

Kinda thinking about changing my username to 'JoeyZero', which is sort of my art name if you will... Thoughts?

Rest in Peace, brother. You're the first reason I ever started drawing.

My son is putting up his artwork now, check him out... He's 9 and he's only gonna get better.

Peep my boy 's journal for a little commission/challenge offer! Can't pass up on some work by him.

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Got some stuff up on ughh.com

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Sort of an introductory set... If these sell OK, they'll put some more of my stuff up. It's all hip hop based work.

In other news, I just saw Justin Bua give a talk and brought my son Mason with me. Really inspiring. [link] . This dude's work has been an influence on me for years.

Sorry I'm rushing through, need to run some errands.

Pushing real hard to get back on my grizzly.

Been so bogged down with work, sidework, fatigue, bullshit in general... Just haven't been able to sit down and do some me-type shit. Every time I go to, all the other garbage that's building up keeps gnawing at the back of my head like a giant fucking tick.

I miss being able to pop on and rant like I used to as well. I think that helps a lot. Bitching. About anything really. It just gives this lift off you; you can almost feel your chest get lighter. All those cats that talk about always being positive... Either I'm missing something and I just don't get it, or that's just fucking impossible. First off, how can their be any balance if there's no negativity? If you're ALWAYS looking at shit in a positive manner, you're just as bad as those that always look at things negatively- amirite? I'm just saying. I mean I go off a lot. A LOT. But I'm not always pissed. Granted, 90% of the time I'm fuming about something, but that's better than just pushing it down and ignoring it so I can act like I'm all flower-scented and bright-eyed, right? You gotta look at it this way too; righteous and raw inspiration almost always comes from unrest. I'm not saying you should break out crying every time something doesn't go your way. In fact, I would probably call you a pussy if that were the case. But if something genuinely bothers you, you should be able to feel like you can speak up about it. If you're gonna swallow it with a spoonful of faux-positivity and ignore it, that shit is gonna explode in your chest one day. Please video it if it happens though. That's gotta look pretty awesome.

I feel like I've been really complacent lately. Doesn't help that I now live in the boring-ass, sedated suburbs either. I think a lot of my inspiration came from the chaos and just that general constant hum you hear and feel when you're in the city. Now it's this routine thing going on and everyone in my town seems to be receptive to it. Every time I start to focus in on it, I start to get sick. I guess I just need to find non-routine within the routine for now. Not like I can just up and move. Not that easy.

Anyway, that's a general rant, sort of. I've had a lot of shit bugging me lately, but I can't remember all of it. That's what's been sucking too, is my memory is absolute DOGSHIT lately. If I try to think of more than one thing at a time, everything gets pushed out of my head. WTF is that?

Bottom line: I'm hoping to do more personal stuff in the coming weeks. I've been trying to power through all the shitty, non-inspiring stuff to be able to do so. Gonna have to see.

Why didn't any of you motherfuckers tell me about this?!?!?!?!?

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Just wanted to take a quick break from work stuff... Been illustrating portraits of some lack-luster peeps all morning. Anyway, some cool stuff has happened recently and may or may not be happening in the future. Never can tell.

This weekend I got a notification on facebook that Steven Ellison, aka Flying Lotus, is using the illustration I did as his profile pic, which was pretty cool to see. It's always awesome when you get to see that, because I did that out of respect and love for his music, and he's digging it, which makes the transaction sorta complete, if that makes sense.

If shit works out alright, I may be selling some prints through a pretty well-known site. Long as I don't fuck it up. Hahahaha.

I got a couple of side jobs I want to hack out of the way, because I've been wanting to do some of my own stuff for a minute now. I've said it a million times, and hopefully one day it'll actually happen, but I've really been struggling with the whole comic thing and trying to figure all that shit out. I just need a good chunk of time to focus on it, which is all but non-existent. Plus, even though the story's real important to me, it may not mean shit to everyone else, so I need to figure out how to tell it so y'all would even give a mad fuck.

I don't know how many of you use iphones, and use instagram, but I love that shit. If you do, hit me up, my name is 'joey_zero' on that.

Kids are going back to school real soon. They're getting all pissy about it. Welcome back to the real world. Heh. The baby ain't a baby no more, she's almost 3 and she's violent as fuck! The creepiest thing is she's all quiet, happy and singing and stuff while she tries to rip your eye out or hits you with a bat. Almost on some 'Audition' shit! I thought girls were supposed to be different!

Holding out 'til next month when the onslaught of awesome games is touching down. I am slobbering all over myself waiting for Arkham city. Then there's about 50 other games dropping that'll be equally great. Don't know how I'm gonna afford all of them, but that's for... Well, I guess me to figure out.

Nabbed a daily deviation today... Well half of one. Really 90% of the props should go to my man for his baller lines and concept, I just added pigment to it!

Thanks to all the comments, faves, watches and the like... Hit up the kid too about this!

Anyone play Bastion yet?

It's been a while since I've posted a good, solid ramble/rant so I figured I'd take a little time out to do so.

I would like to start by saying things have been relentlessly busy these past months. That is good and bad. It's always good to have work to do. It's somewhat bad to have so much work that you're just constantly grinding to pump project after project out without having the ability to put much thought into any one of them for more than 15 minutes at a time. The main weapon we have as designers is our knack for solving problems through well-thought-out concepts and execution. How the fuck can I execute properly without thinking things through first? It's like blind-firing into a blizzard… I doubt I'll hit my mark a fraction as much as I should be.

It's just difficult because even when I set aside a certain sliver of time to dedicate to one project, I have the other 35,000 gnawing at the back of my brain like a termite.

Time for personal work has become all but non-existent, with a few pockets of hours here and there to rock out to something for me (like this past week, where everything sort of slowed a little for Memorial day.)

I sort of feel like I need to take a break… Like a week off or so from anything art/design-related just to re-gather my sanity and allow the motor to cool down a bit. I don't think it's healthy for anyone involved in my day-to-day to just keep spinning like this. The problem with our world as designers/illustrators/creatives, etc. is that this isn't a sort of applied switch that we can randomly just turn on and off to perform our jobs correctly. As whiney and shitty as it sounds, we need to have a certain degree of inspiration and motivation to fire off all cylinders and perform well. Our work almost directly reflects our mood and sentiment of the time, so if we feel like shit and drained, our work will magnify that. We're not accountants. We're not laborers. It doesn't work in that sort of tangible way where we can still get the job done even if we're salty as fuck. Again, it sounds like I'm being a pussy, but it's true. Even been on both sides of the spectrum, so I know what I'm talking about. Back in the day, when I did work like loading trucks and washing dishes, I could do that in the shittiest mood imaginable and still over-perform. In this business, if I feel like shit and can't concentrate, whatever I'm working on will come out like crap and will reflect poorly on me.

Anyway, I feel like I beat a dead horse with this shit. Every now and then, if you've been following me for long enough, you know that I go off like this. It's just an artsy bitch session is all; mainly because this is my livelihood, so it's extremely difficult to just take a step back from it. That's all.

On another note… Has anyone else been really disappointed with video games lately? I must say, I finished L.A. Noire a week or so ago, and it was a ton of fun, but I don't see a reason to re-play it, at least right now. It could've gone on longer, and I don't quite understand how it all tied together in the end. Not sure if they're just leaving it open for a sequel or some other reason. And Brink… Motherfucking Brink. I'm so torn about this one. The game is playable, but nowhere near the juggernaut I thought it was going to be. Not to mention I thought the customization was going to be much deeper and expanded, which was one of the major drawing points for me. I totally wanted to rock a Thistle-looking character to run around like a madman, but for one, you don't unlock any sort of hoodie looking piece of clothing till you reach lvl 20, which is the max, and even then, it ain't even all that. And, I don't know about you all, but I love creating female characters when you have a game that can do customization, which is probably why I've always been drawn to Saints row so much. Nothing better than beating someone to death with a crowbar, or cutting down a whole group of soldiers with an LMG as a bad-ass-looking chick. Brink didn't have any of that though… I dunno, maybe it's just me.

I think the problem is that lately, the hype-men and women for all these games are much louder than they really should be. The folks at Bethesda swore up and down that Brink was going to be the end-all-be-all of shooters, and it just underwhelmed so hard.

The fall looks like it's going to be insanely packed with awesome games though, so I guess I gotta just wait it out. The only thing I'm looking forward to in the next couple of weeks is Infamous 2.

Anyone play Brink yet?

Want to art so goddamn bad... !

Anyone nabbing this for the 360???

Dying to play as-

Deadpool

Dante

Viewtiful Joe

Chris Redfield

Taskmaster

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...

How 'bout you?

Just did a little sprucing up on my Behance page... Nothing you guys haven't seen, but it's all good.

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Dude, I got a popcorn kernel lodged in my tonsil and it's slowly starting to make me gag. Stupid delicious menace!

I'm going to say that I never make these sorts of dumb resolutions that no one ever sticks to... But, I think I need to make this one, and make sure I see it through. I HAVE TO DO MORE ART AGAIN. This shit has been killing me. I don't care anymore, I need to make at least some time to do stuff. My new manager is big on keeping us creatively fed, so this is a good way for me to get out of my malnourishment. I been starving lately (although I wish that was literal so my fat ass could lose a little weight).

For starters, I really need to go back to carrying some sort of sketchbook or something around. I used to have that at all times. Second, I need to set myself up with a constant stream of inspiration again... I used to have this around at all times as well. I fell into this weird routine over the past year or so where all I looked at was stuff directly related to work and crappy videos of people getting hurt. While these will still be part of my regimen, they used to be strictly supplemental. I think I was at a point of burnout. With this new job, it already feels refreshing, even though I haven't quite started it yet. But I will be able to conceptualize more and really think about what I'm doing, rather than just banging out constant projects as fast and as many as possible on a daily basis. It'll be nice I think.

So anyway, bottom line- Expect some more out of me in the near future. This shit's gotta stop.