New year

Every newyear I think "wow how fast this year went by" but looking back at how much has happened I realise it was quite a long year.
Things like I moved to my own appartment, quit my job and started school. I lost a bunch of weight, met a whole lot of awesome people and friends, I even got a damn cat! Very much has happened indeed.

For instance this happened this year:

Happy new year, I hope 2013 will bring much joy to each one of you. Live in the present and appreciate life, look forward to your future goals but remember the past and think about how it shaped you and the experiences it brought!

Much love /Adam

Merry christmas!

I hope you all had a great x-mas, I know I did. Been seeing old friends and spending time with my family (I normally live in another city).

Have not been drawing anything these past days but I thought I'd post an old favourite.
Almost everybody I've asked says this is their favourite portrait of mine. I've never thought that myself but I start to see the charm of it. It has a look that non of my other portraits have, it's more "blurry" looking I think, a result of the reference photo beeing very low resolution which also made this portrait very difficult. It's also the only portrait I've done with more than just the head and the neck, this one is more like a roman bust but that was fun and challenging.

From my favourite tv-series: Charles Dance as Tywin Lannister (Game of thrones)

Movie recap 2012.

So per tradition I will do a summary of the movies I thought stood out and were the most enjoyable from this year. I will also go through the movies I disliked the most and the best acting of the year.


Best comedy: Ted

Seth McFarlane's new screenplay comedy is one I really enjoyed. Truly a comedy for adults and who is not afraid of stepping on anybody's toes. About a boy and his living teddy bear who grow up together, one becoming more vulgar than the other.
If you've seen family guy you will recognize some elements and so on here but that's ok in my opinion. I laughed out loud a couple of times and some dialogs were really smart and thought through.

A different and interesting comedy, not everybody will like it but I sure did!
Score: 7 out of 10.


Another movie which falls under the category comedy but is really mainly a drama is the french film called The Intouchables.

An old rich guy who's paralyez from the neck down needs a new assistant. An unexpected man gets the job, a black man from the poorer parts of Paris. They have pretty much nothing in common but it turns out they have much to learn from each other and in the end they become lifelong friends.

Based on a true story and a heartwarming and funny such.

8 out of 10.


I've seen a lot of horror movies this year. Most are like usual crap but here are three I found interesting and watchable:

Sinister:

A bookwriter moves to a house with his wife and children to get inspiration for his new book. The house is the old crime scene of the horrible murders where a whole family got hung in a tree in the gardens. In the big attic the writer finds a bunch of old super-8 film-tapes whom he soon starts to go thorugh. They all contain the horrific images of a number of similar murders where whole families are killed. He soon sees the connection of them all but what he didnt anticipate was that he was soon to be part of it.

There were many times where you jumped in your seat and the suspense was great. The plot was easy to follow yet interesting and creative. Over all a very watchable horror movie and one of the best in it's genre this year.

My score is 7 out of 10.


VHS:

One of the self-perspective movies where we get to follow the characters in action filmed by them selves on their respective taping device. There is a red line in this movie but it's thin, a gang of burglars break into a house to steal some old VHS tape. They don't know which one is the right one and are forced to watch through a bunch of them, each apparently containing paranormal and disturbing events.

One of the scarier horror movies of this year and a pretty original one. Nice use of the first person-perspective and some unecspected mini plot twists.

Score also 7 out of 10.


The cabin in the woods

Starts out as a very boring "a bunch of teens go out in the woods to get slaughtered" film but after a while a twist of a magnitudes I've never witnessed takes place. Not a movie that I liked because of the thick plot or the vast SGI, brilliant acting or anything like that, I liked it rather because it was different. It was entertaining because I couldn't forsee almost anything and that's one of the rarest things nowadays in a movie.


Score 6.5 out of 10.



Best movie: The dark knight rises

The last in Christopher Nolan's batman series. I love dark and dystopic movies, the dark knight rises is very much a such. Batman is part of a small group of super heroes who actually don't have any super powers (the title "super hero" may hence be a bit misleading) anyhow Christopher Nolan creates a world for us that is of course very unrealistic but that we still can relate to. Bruce Wayne is a torn man and not unbeatable by any means, he has little to live for and has put away the cape. New threats in Gotham emerge and he has to put aside his own afflictions to save what he calls home.

What makes the Dark Knight rises so great in my eyes is it's ability to put emotion and a deep touch of reality to a genre that is otherwise too shallow and afraid of anything new. Great script and acting, superb screen setting and a mood that flows thorughout all the movie and sets the bar high above all who will try to follow in it's footsteps.

Best movie of 2012, score 9 out of 10. Has it's flaws too but hey, nothing is perfect.


Second best movie: Lawless.

Also based on a true story, about the moonshining industry and corruption in old America. Tom Hardy (who's slowly becoming my favourite actor) plays the oldest brother of three who runs the business. The youngest brother (Shia LeBouf) has a hard time trying to catch up. One day a sleek dude shows up to the ranch and demands a big percentage of every sale the brothers make. Forrest
(Tom Hardy) refuses to give in to the demands, setting a whole bunch of events snowballing into chaos.

The biggest surprise for me in movies this year. I thought it would be very mediocre but I really enjoyed it. Actually my second best/favourite film of all of 2012.

8,5 out of 10 is my score.


Worst movies:

Coriolanus

Based on an old shakespeare play. It is set in modern day but uses the linguistics of the 17th century.
Everything is just wrong here, it's like launching a caveman into space or making a duck head of security at a nuclear power plant. I would have been totally fine with them using the old play but only if they'd adjusted it to the time they desided to put it in, used psynonyms to old mossy words and made it flow better. Now it's like watching an eighty years old man skateboard, if you catch my drift.

Horrible movie for a very very narrow audience.

Score: 3 out of 10


Hunger games

Many love this movie and I never set out to see a something with the mindset that it's probably going to be bad. I wasn't the targeted audience for the hunger games but I know a good movie when I see one. It was over two hours long and the build up time for the main event was over half the movie. A build up that made no sense to me and didn't make me feel anything for the characters.
Once the tournament started after a too long wait and the action got going a bit it only felt like a bad, censored version of battle royale.

Score 4 out of 10.



Best acting: Matthew fox (Alex Cross)

I could really see how much effort Matthew Fox had put into his character, it was really amazing. He had lost very much weight and was really ripped. There is a scene where he is cage fighting and every muscle fiber and vein under his skin is visible. I've never seen him play an evil character so it was surprising how well he did it. He really looked sinister and aligned with his evil self.

The movie "Alex Cross" was a real crappy turd, very dissapointing considering how good Fox's acting was, It could easily have been one of this years best movies of its genre had it had a different director and a better screenplay.

The movie Alex Cross 4 out of 10, Fox's acting 9 out of 10.



This year's most overrated: The Avengers

It was ok but I didn't feel that it brought something to the screen we already haven't seen. It felt like a fruitsallad with all marvel characters, a fruitsallad left in the fridge for two-three weeks that had lost all it's charm. When I watch a movie I want to be in awe, supprised or for some other reason very amused, with the avengers I wasn't. For me it was just plain "ok".




Other movies worth mentioning are

Skyfall
Prometheus

Two movis I really liked but weren't good enough to be in the top three this year. (The third best movie beeing The Intouchables, after The dark knight rises and Lawless)

I did not see Bilbo yet but I expect it to be really nice, It would probably be in this list somewhere if I'd seen it, from what I've heard from other people. Ben Affleck's new movie "Fargo" is also supposed to be very good.



That's it people, hope you like this year's summary and feel free to put a comment down below with your own opinions, I'd like to hear them :)

Merry Christmas and a Happy new year!

Angel

So for the past years I've been drawing this war-angel (or something). I think it's fun to draw the same pictures I've done before to see the changes.

So this year's angel:

Took like one hour to draw and the pose is not very dramatic. Didn't draw any flying piece of clothing and so on like in the last pieces because I wanted to try something new, other than that not much to say.

Compared to last year and the year before. Haha I almost think I liked last year's picture better than this year's. Some proportions got better though, the stomach looks more realistic for example and the lines are a bit cleaner.

More wips

Work in progress (wip 1)

There's not enough art here nowadays! Yes, I agree to my own statement and respond by posting the outline of a new portrait I'm doing!

Motivation

"Be motivated" is the title of my blog and I thought I would speak a little about motivation today.
To find inspiration and motivation is hard. I myself just went through a long period of about two or three months where I wasn't motivated to work out at all. I forced myself to go like twice a week just to maintain some strenght but it was harsh. I felt "why do I work out? It's exhausting and pointless"

I think about becoming a personal trainer after graduation or something similar. I want to help people endorse the lifestyle they seek or perhaps need but don't have the motivation for. How do we make motivation sprout?

For me it was just a matter of getting back to old habits. As I started working out more often again I regained some old stamina and I started feeling more happy again. Last night before going to sleep I even thought to myself "man, I want it to be day now so I can go work out some shoulders".

"Unmotivated" cat

Anyhow, feeling motivated is nothing that comes by itself. I think setting your own goals is necessary, watch videos online like these:

For me when I started getting into training and fitness was as late as 19 years of age. I was assigned to the military and I knew if I wasn't in shape when I got there I´d be screwed. During that year I spent in the military training and exercise became part of my normal daily rutine, something that still follows me.

Make working out a part of your life, set small goals like "I want to be able to do 5 pull-ups" or "I want to be able to run 10 km without stopping" and then just go out there. Get rolemodels, watch people on youtube, read fitness bloggs. I watch countless diet shows on tv and after each one of those I just feel like going out in the tracks and running.

Find your way to motivation, you'll be glad you did!

Epic Battle!

Haha don't think I've shown this here. Long time since I posted a picture so why not this random thing.

Bulk

Haha ok so in desperation to gain back some manliness points since that last post with make up and all that I'll post some pictures of my current shape.

So far I've gained about two kilos since my diet ended. I've done this on purpose, I'm eating more carbs and my training schedule is not focused on high reps now but rather to do max-reps and try to gain strenght. During the spring/summer I'll go back to the more high rep schedule and focus a bit more on endurance. Right now though I'm trying to go all-in Schwarzenegger haha.


I take these pictures to compare results, this is the only way for me to see the difference.
My main goal with the training is not to look one way or the other etc and to post these pictures is very embarrasing for me. I've always been a quite shy person and to do embarrasing things is my way to deal with it and to become more outgoing.

Anyhow at my lightest I was 78 kg, now I'm at around 80. I feel a little bit stronger because of the extra carbs I'm eating and put on some exess fat, not to wurry though it's ok I will lose that during my next diet.

Taking a picture of your own back turns out to not be the easiest...

Compared to one year ago hahaha. Still can not get over this. I hope I can inspire atleast someone to go out in the tracks and run a little or whatever. Health is a resource! To be frank I felt like shit before I started working out, I didn't even realise it myself.


Now im heading out for a hardcore leg-workout :) Take care people!