Some neat stuff I did this weekend that robbed me of sleeping in:


Saturday I volunteered at Pyramid Atlantic to work on the Peace Mural that will be displayed along Georgia Avenue (near my favorite Indian restaurant!).  There was a huge turn out of volunteers and the organizers were very nice.  It was a non-traditional mural that was broken up into pieces and worked on inside (which was great since it was rainy).  The illustrations were made into sections and numbered not unlike paint-by-number kits - only huge!



In the afternoon, William and I had some Pho and went to see A Serious Man at the AFI Silver.  What an irritating movie.

Sunday, we went to the Maryland Renaissance Fair where there was jousting!



Archery!



The King and Queen!



Fried Oreos!



And Stormtroopers in kilts!



We also saw a Ghostbuster.

Now I'm crazy addicted to this game I just discovered through Reddit called Clockwords.  I hate you, Reddit. ...I can't stay mad at you :(

I made another video of my cats.  Please enjoy!

Army 10 Miler in Washington DC on October 4, 2009.

My first 10 miler. This was a beautiful race that went by DC monuments and historic places starting and ending at the Pentagon.

The weather was perfect and there were a lot of Army displays including the Golden Knights parachute team and a low fly by of four UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters right over the starting line. Awesome.

The race was nice and flat and the shorter distance was a welcome change. I will definitely run this race again next year.

Crappy photo of me as usual. I had to put the camera on the ground with the timer on and I still managed to be distracted right when it went off.



Baltimore Running Festival (Half Marathon) in Baltimore, MD on October 10, 2009.

Running in this event again marks the one year anniversary of my first foot race. This time I was accompanied by William who was running his first half marathon.

The race was as I remembered - well supported and exciting. We had some really great weather for running and everyone had a good time.

Before our race, Jamie and I had agreed that in running, the shorter your shorts the more serious you were about running. To humor her, I went out and bought some insanely small shorts the night before. They were very drafty and had built in underwear. I wont be wearing them again.

Gauley River in West Viriginia on September 26, 2009.

Once again, Jamie, William and I went out for the fall release of the Gauley River.  This monster rafting trip includes five class V rapids and over 100 water features.  In the photo I am sitting on the left side of the boat holding the paddle above my head.  William is behind me and Jamie is behind him.  We are diving away from Pillow Rock.

Here is our video from the trip:

Otakon 2009 has come and gone! We had a great time this year and had a lot of positive response at both our table and in the auction!

I'm pretty exhausted from the convention so I wont go into tiresome detail but there was some fantastic artwork in the alley this year. I wish I could have left my table more often to speak with other artists but I did manage to run up and down the aisles to see some amazing pieces on display.

I got to see Zora again which was really exciting since we haven't seen each other in years! It was great to talk with you again, Zora! You always have so much energy and a positive attitude!

I finally got to meet the infamous LavaLizard and like our online adventures, we found ourselves in real life drawing our characters in battle! It was awesome to hang out with you, Lava. You always motivate me with your great ideas and concepts!

Josh, Goran and Anon Twentyseven were my assistants this year and I couldn't have run the table without them. I owe you guys BIG TIME! Thanks for everything - you helped me through some tough spots and kept me laughing the whole time.

I finally met both Celesse and Algy and was able to relay a note through them to Satou. Thanks!

Thanks to Evui for stopping by and meeting me! It was fun chatting with you and your cosplay was awesome!

Some beautiful work I saw by talented artists include the amazing Dan Howard, Kevin Yan, all the folks from Udon Crew, and there are tons more but I'm forgetting!

We had some incredible table neighbors. Thank you, Dom for being so awesome to talk to. Wish we could have hung out more! We were also sitting to Lettie Lo who had some beautiful Pokemon fan art works and did some amazing commissions.

A HUUUUUGE thank you to everyone who stopped by to talk, ask questions, take photos, autographs and bought prints. Your support means everything to me and I was truly flattered by all the kind comments we received! It was fantastic to meet all of you and I am very much looking forward to our next convention.

I apologize to everyone who missed their opportunity to buy a print that we sold out of. I had no idea we would have such a huge demand this year. I feel terrible that we ran out so early but I promise I will work out something with everyone who has noted or emailed me to request a print!

Congratulations to those people who won my auction pieces! My three pieces Unstompable Force, Night Flight, and Twilight Princess all went to the live auction and had a GREAT response. Thank you!!

I'm looking forward to next year's Otakon! Thank you again for all of your support and making the event a success!

I will be an exhibitor at the Artist Alley this year at Otakon 2009!  I’m looking forward to being at the convention again this year and being able to share my artwork.  I do not know where my table will be yet, but when I find out I will be sure to update this post.  Please come visit me!

This year I will be selling 8x10 and 11x17 inch art prints at my table.  I will be showcasing my own characters and have fan art in the following topics:

• Princess Mononoke
• Spirited Away
• Howl’s MovingCastle
• The Last Guardian
• Pokemon
• Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
• Super Mario Bros.
  

I will also have an oil painting in the auction with the following subject:

• Imp Midna – Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
  

It is truly exciting to meet you all and see the artwork of other artists in the Alley.

Since I am very busy, I generally do not do any commissions in or out of the convention.  Sorry!

If you have requests on the topics that I sell at the convention please let me know.  I still have some time to prepare.  Hope to see you there!

I'm happy to inform everyone that both the Burning Gates and TsaoShin.com are now open!  These sites replace my old website, The Broken Ladder.

William and I have been keeping the entire project a secret from everyone for a while now simply because we have a good track record of telling people our ambitions then never realizing them.  We figured this would be a really great surprise and we were incredibly dedicated to seeing the project come to life.

The TBL oekaki and The Island are now housed at the Burning Gates and my portfolio website has moved to TsaoShin.com (some of you may remember this old domain from nearly 10 years ago).  We've added some great new features and we hope that you are happy with the new vision.

The sites are up and running but they are a little buggy so we are inviting you to send us your feedback as you use them.

I'm very excited to see some old faces at Burning Gates and to meet new people.  Thanks for all of the support for almost a full decade and I hope we can make art together for years to come!

Maryland Half Marathon in Timonium, MD on May 31, 2009

This inaugural race benefits the Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center. Despite the race being new, it was very well organized and there was a lot of support.

It was raining on my drive up to the race but it cleared up right at gun start and turned out to be a beautiful day. The course was extremely hilly and wore me out pretty fast but I managed to run a 01:53:47 - 40 seconds over my last half.

This is my last race until the end of the summer. I hate to run outside during the heat and humidity but I will be picking up more hiking instead.