Category: My Artistic Endeavors

My journey deeper into photography, art-making, filmmaking. Practiciing the craft that makes my creative juices flow.

  • Why Bitcoin Cannot Save Greece

    Why Bitcoin Cannot Save Greece
    By Chongchen Saelee

    You can see the desperation in the eyes of Bitcoin’s cultish eloquent tragic hero Andreas Antonopolous who believes himself the savior of his beloved Greek peoples, having “inherited the Greek Drachma”. It seems Greece is victim to crooked banksters and politicians taking good chunks out of its citizens money, apparently to pay off national debts. How could Bitcoin possibly save anyone if it’s just a matter of replacing an exploited currency with another one? If those crooks can take the Drachmas, what’s stopping them from taking away the people’s Bitcoins?

    Money only works when there is trust amongst the people using it. It’s an abstract concept. The farmer who raises the cattle for your hamburger is more valuable than you if you don’t know how to raise livestock. However, if you are a charismatic sociable person with resourceful friends who could possibly trade resources with you and the farmer, then you’ve got a little bartering ecosystem going for yourself. You may very well become very valuable to the cattle farmer if you have a friend that knows how to mend shoes, or grow a special crop, or give awesome haircuts. The value is relative to the people in the ecosystem.

    So if Greeks want to stop their crooked government officials from taking their hard-earned money, then they gotta fix it themselves. Why do they owe so many people? How are they going to pay back their debt? You wouldn’t honor your debts if you’re not honorable people. And I think that’s the whole point behind politics. People are sometimes so honorable, they let others take advantage of them.

    Without doing anything extreme, I’d say the best solution for Greeks feeling ripped off by their authorities is simply to move and stop using Drachma. People have picked up and moved in a heartbeat since the beginning of time. If you got the will and are a hardworker, you can make it. Now, whether or not Bitcoin is a suitable currency to replace Greece’s weakened financial system, that’s just not predictable. But I’d say to avoid it.

    The only thing that can save Greece is its own people. No amount of money, even fake money can solve the fallacies of human dynamics.

  • Bitcoin Monster!!! By Satoshi Nakamoto

    Bitcoin Monster by Satoshi Nakamoto
    Bitcoin Monster by Satoshi Nakamoto

  • Practicing Coloring and Lettering Comic Book Page

    A page from James O'Barr The Crow colored and lettered by Saelee
    A page from James O’Barr The Crow colored and lettered by Saelee

    Here is a scan from my The Crow trade paperback. Since my drawing style is closer to that of James O’Barr, I thought it’d be better practice coloring and lettering similar artwork. The page is scanned in at 1200 dpi grayscaled. Combined with new lettering and colors, the file is a little under a gigabyte as Photoshop file. That seems about correct. It will be resampled to 300dpi for publishing at a company like Lulu though. The goal being to do Agent S similar to this style, colored and lettered.

  • How To Draw and Ink Comics in Photoshop

  • Pen Tonic: Agent S vs Terrorist

    Pen Tonic: Agent S vs Terrorist
    Pen Tonic: Agent S vs Terrorist

  • To My Delilah, Don’t Be Scared of Heaven

    2525: A Collection of Short Stories

    Tone Poem

    To My Delilah, Don’t Be Scared of Heaven
    By Helmut Finch

    To my dearest daughter Delilah
    Don’t be scared of heaven
    Poppa is here with you now
    I will hold your hand and walk you there

    The road is clear and paved for you
    Poppa can see through smoke and fog and clouds
    You can fly with the eagles to heaven
    Momma will wait for you there

    Don’t be scared, Delilah
    I will find you there

  • Eastfist Comics Self-Publishing Vanity Logo

    Eastfist Comics Logo
    Eastfist Comics Logo

    What’s cool with self-publishing is you get to imprint your brand and declare yourself the publisher. So I’ll be doing “2525” aka my Agent S project under the imprint of Eastfist Comics. Obviously, right? Here’s my first iteration of the logo. Otherwise I would have continued to use Pen Tonic Comics as the imprint, which is where I first debuted Agent S, but I won’t try to make 2525 too oddball humor, so this imprint is more dramatic and symbolic.

    I still want to work a pen and ink motif into the text logo. Maybe remove the S logo out of the O because it’s too busy. The flag logo is definitely staying for my bigger comic projects. Agent S motif to kickstart it.

  • Lulu.com Comic Book 6.625×10.25 Full Color Standard/Value Review

    Things to remember:

    • This proof had images at 1200dpi and 600dpi, well over the optimal 300dpi submission resolution. It is indeterminable. So might as well send in at 300dpi. That way you can send in more than 48 pages.
    • Use less saturated colors. Pure blacks are going to drench the pages. Lower the levels a bit.
    • Do not expect detailed heavily painted artworks to print well. Only use sharp contrasty flat colors.
    • Try to think about your layout in advance and what types of fancy splash images you want to print. That way the ink is evenly distributed across the page. This is a limitation of using Lulu.com, but other than that, the print quality is awesome.

  • Happy Friggin New Year Ya Filthy Animals

  • Jackpot Bloom Featured on Local News WFRV CBS 5 in Green Bay!!!

    Get your copies of Jackpot Bloom folks!!!