Oooooh my god I’m so tired. For some reason, which I have to discuss with my shrink, I can’t seem to sleep for more than 4 hours at a time anymore and it’s bugging the crap out of me. I don’t know if it’s because medication A has stopped working or because medication B was increased or what, but as I said, it’s bugging the crap out of me. I’m kinda lucky in that my non-schedule is very flexible and I can pretty much sleep whenever I want/need to but this is getting ridiculous.

All last week this woman named Tracey kept calling the house for me and leaving messages to call her back, but as I tend to do when that happens, I ignored the messages, especially since I was fairly certain this was my new caseworker who I’m loathe to deal with. Especially since she sounded annoying on the messages. Well, I finally called her back yesterday and now I have to go see her on Monday. To be perfectly honest here, and I told her this, I have no idea what her job is or what she’s supposed to be doing for me. I think she’s supposed to do stuff with the immersion therapy and helping me set goals and work on time management, but I’m not sure and I guess I’ll find out on Monday. At 10:30 in the morning. IN THE MORNING, PEOPLE. Ugh.

And as much as I’m bitching, when it was suggested by my shrink that I get a caseworker, I agreed and I do need one…probably…so there’s really nothing to bitch about. Except for the whole getting up before noon thing. (Poor baby, I know, I’ll live. I’ll just be very very cranky.)

Last night I fell asleep within the first few minutes of 90210 (the horror!), so I’ll have to catch it on Ninja Video later this week, but that means I fell asleep at 9pm, Blake marched me to bed at 10pm and lo & behold, I was awake at 2am, laying in bed, wishing I could shut my brain off and sleep through the night. But, that didn’t happen, so by 2:45am I was crawling out of bed and into my studio to find something to do.

Due to the fact that this Hypercube contest has pretty much consumed my life for the past 2 weeks I’ve been seriously neglecting my artwork and I decided last night that I needed to rectify that, so I threw on a movie, lit some lavender incense and got to work on the girls who are going to adorn two of the canvases I posted pictures of about two weeks ago. The 4 canvases are a series that I have yet to name, but the two girls I’m working on now are a ballerina and a flower girl, while the two I have still to work on are going to be a princess and a cheerleader. For the latter two though, I’m still waiting for one element for one of them and still trying to find a quote I need for he other. The ballerina and flower girl ideas are complete though, so all I have to do is actually get them on canvas and they’re done.

It took me all night to draw them, then it took me all morning to shade and paint their faces. Later tonight if I’m still up (I’ve only had a 3 hour nap since 2am), I’ll work on their hair, dresses and finally, their arms (which is the tricky part I hate doing).

Here’s a picture of the ballerina with just the shading done (with watercolour pencil – oh how I wish Inktense pencils had a proper pink/yellow ochre, it would make my life a whole lot easier), the flower girl is on the right, not shaded:

Then I go over the shading with a Caucasian flesh colour mixed with glazing liquid and lightened up, in the case of the flower girl, with white. (So the ballerina has straight up flesh colour + glazing liquid, then I added white to do the flower girl because I wanted her to be more pale, not sure if the picture conveys that well, though.):

I still have to go over the flower girl’s eyes with black, she kinda looks a bit cracked out in person at the moment, but other than that, their faces are finished and I’m ready to go onto the next steps.

After procrastinating on this project for the past two weeks due to being consumed with Hypercube stuff it felt good to actually do something productive. I’m not sure what a lit a fire under my ass today, but progress was definitely on the agenda.

Due to the glittered backgrounds with these 4 paintings I don’t think I’m going to be able to make prints from them and because I think the ideas are so solid, especially…and y’know, I’m not gonna jinx my productive streak with money talk.

Onto other things…like Hypercube stuff…

Currently I’m ranked #8 and Blake is #9, which is okay. That’s not to say to stop voting, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF KITTENS DO NOT STOP VOTING, it just means that A) several of the people in the top 10 with us are french and thus, are sort of in a totally different category than we are and B) we found out yesterday that votes only account for 20% of your overall score. I think by being in the top 10 or maybe even the top 20, you’re gonna earn 100% of that 20% so as far as I’m concerned, unless something really bad happens in the next 2 weeks or people stop voting, we’re probably golden in getting that 20%. That leaves 80%, which is comprised of (as far as the e-mail @thehypercube sent out yesterday) “uniqueness, creativity, personality, enthusiasm and a wide variety of talents or approaches“.

Well, I’m unique, there’s no denying that. Got the creativity part pretty much down. Personality? Admittedly, I may be an acquired taste. Enthusiasm? On a scale of 1 to Telma Costa, I’d give myself an 8. I’ve shown up for every Tweetup, I’ve participated in all things Twitter and Facebook, I’ve answered 95% of the Questions of the Day, I’ve given people pep talks along the way, I’ve helped people out where I can, I’ve spammed the entire friggin’ internet DAILY with all things Cube…yeah, I’m a pretty solid 8, I think.  As far as the “wide variety of talents or approaches” part, that’s tough. Painting’s not that unique of a talent, neither is writing or blogging, social creativity however, is. I think, as my votes reflect, I’m kinda good at that and according to the contest’s own press release “social creativity” is what they’re looking to reward. My approach from the very beginning, as it says on my canvas that hasn’t changed since day 1, is to just be myself  – warts & all – and at the end of this thing it’s going to come down to whether or not I’m what they’re looking for. If I am, awesome, I get a car! If I’m not, then I’m not and there’s nothing I can really do about it. I’m no worse for wear. Truthfully though, I feel pretty good about my chances. Or at least I did until yesterday. Yesterday I may have sunk myself. :o/

Yesterday @thehypercube asked us 5 questions in regards to what to do after the contest ends and my answers were of the “zag” variety to others’ “zigs”. At first I didn’t really think much of it, I mean, I’m an honest person, lip service isn’t in my repertoire so I just answered the questions with whatever came out of my head at the time. Not all of my feelings on the things asked were rainbows and sunshine. Here’s what was asked:

1. Would you like to keep the community going?
2. What would you like to do with the community? Cube spotting, friending each other on the site, monthly give-aways?
3. What would you use the site for? Creative forum? Keep using the canvases? Open canvases up to everyone?
4. Would you want to keep me, or the twitter account, or would you guys like to take turns ‘owning’ the moderation/twitter account?
5. What would make the site more useful to you?

Here were my answers, in 140 character format because we had to reply to them on Twitter:

1. Yes, but “the community” for me really only encompasses Twitter and I have no brand loyalty to Nissan to blog on their site…

…without good reason, or waste words on a Nissan forum or even keep a canvas up. I’ll only have a Nissan connection if I have…

…a Cube and unless I win one, that’s simply not going to happen. So “yes” with a lot of reservations.

2. I dunno what “cube spotting” is, I can already “friend” people on LJ where I’ve been for 10 years, might stick around for…

…monthly giveaways but other than a Cube, I can’t see myself being all that interested in anything Nissan could give me.

3. I hate the canvases. I think they’re buggy and awful and I’m only using one to win a Cube. I wouldn’t use one otherwise.

I already belong to 3 other “creative forums” that I’ll go back to once the contest is closed…

…unless I’m a winner and then I’ll be the biggest Nissan creativity cheerleader there ever was. Opening canvases up to…

…everyone means too many canvases. I mean really, if the contest isn’t happening, are people really going to get “exposure”…

…that amounts to anything from a Nissan canvas? I know I won’t and I know that even with the contest I’m not.

4. I think @thehypercube should always be you or an agency/Nissan representative.

As long as the Twitter account didn’t get spammy, I’d still probably follow.

5. I don’t honestly know. I am in love with the idea of blogging for Nissan’s newest brand should I be a winner, but I wouldn’t…

…blog on the site otherwise, so blog wouldn’t be useful to me. A forum wouldn’t be useful to me, nor more canvases.

I just don’t see the site as being possibly useful to me unless I’m there for a purpose and the only purpose I foresee is…

…if I’m a winner and I’m obligated to blog on the site at least twice a month for a year. There’s nothing else to keep me there.

See what I mean? But the thing is, I was being honest and not just from a personal perspective, but from an ad school dropout perspective. Sure a LOT of people were like “yeah! let’s keep the community going and add this & that and do this and that and blah blah blah!” but the fact of the matter is, this is Angie’s (the creative director behind @thehypercube) job so if this is all lip service because people are afraid to hurt their chances in the contest by saying anything negative or anti-community and it DOESN’T work out? She could be in trouble.

And the thing is, MOST of the community aspect happening in this contest is on Twitter alone, it has nothing to do with the site. The community was there before the site even had anything on it, before we even got our profile e-mails, before a single canvas went up. And I’m sorry to say, but of the 500 people we have competing in this thing, how many do you really think are going to stick around when they’re not one of the 50 chosen? How many people, in the grand scheme of 500, are REALLY into the community aspect? We have our little core group of folks on Twitter who help each other, talk every day and fuck around at Tweetups, but that’s a tiny fragment of the overall 500. Also a tiny fragment of this 500 (?) are Cube enthusiasts. The majority of the people – and believe me, I go look at every single canvas every 2 days – just want a free car. They don’t want a Cube specifically, they want a free pair of wheels. Hell, the amount of people who still think they’re trying to win a “hypercube” is STAGGERING. The majority are in it for themselves and that’s a fact. They’re not gonna stick around after the contest is over without incentive…

…and there’s been talk of the possibility of giving away more cars a year from now, which is all fine & good, but I won’t be sticking around for that contest. If what I did this time around wasn’t good enough, what I do a year from now isn’t going to be good enough either, keeping in mind that my entire strategy – which they themselves are pushing – is to be myself. The other give-away stuff that was mentioned was like, car packages, like…if you didn’t get shag carpeting on your car this time around, you can win some. Or a new stereo. Or a spoiler. Well, if I don’t win a Cube, what am I going to do with that stuff? That’s not incentive for me to stick around. I can’t afford a Cube, so the only way I’m going to have one is if I win one and if I win one, I’m contractually obligated to blog on the site twice a month for a year, so as I said, I’ll be the biggest brand cheerleader the world has ever seen.

As I said in my response yesterday, I already belong to 3 different creativity forums, 4 if you want to count I Have an Idea, and all of those forums are going to serve my art business better than the Nissan site ever could. And unless there’s a damn good reason, I don’t really want my stuff under the banner of a corporate brand, especially when the only “benefit” to me doing so is what…extra traffic to my site? Well here’s the thing about that: I’ve sent Nissan 7930+ visits to their site, but they’ve only sent me 189. Who’s benefiting whom? And how is that going to change when there aren’t a billion people being spammed with the url every day because there’s a contest going on and people want votes? The fact of the matter is, a potential client isn’t going to seek out my services (or anyone else’s, in my opinion) on the Hypercube website. There are a million other websites that already serve that purpose that people already use.

I wouldn’t blog on the Nissan site without compensation. Why should I? I’ve been doing this a long time ago and I learned the hard way that you don’t just give your content away, especially not to a multinational company that can afford to pay you. Plus, bloggers outside of the 50 winners would take away from those chosen, in part, for their ability to blog about the product.

A forum for Cube enthusiasts open to everyone? Sure, I can see that working, although I’m only going to be a Cube enthusiast, as I said, if I win one and I think the majority of the people in this contest are with me on that, so is it worth it? I dunno.

I hate that I’m so negative on the site changing and staying open to everyone/the general public once the contest is done, but I think it should run its course with this contest, have the contest end on a high note, have the 50 winners blog on it for a year and serve as advertising for the brand and then maybe in a year, repeat the contest again. I think anything beyond that and you run the risk of the naysayers (and  there are many) being right about this whole “never been done” “social media experiment”. You wanna pop, not fizzle. Go out on a high note. Or even AFTER the contest is over, a few months later. THEN play with adding things to the site, but distance it from the Hypercube contest. I like the idea someone threw out of giving new Cube owners a code or something to access the site and maybe post on a forum or something like that. But that’s an idea completely separate, in my mind, from the Hypercube contest.

I’d just really hate to see a really interesting, never been done before “social media experiment” be ruined by pushing it further than it can feasibly go.

ANNNNNND there would have been pictures of Cubes all throughout this verbose recap of yesterday’s thoughts, but I asked twice on Twitter more than 3 & a half hours ago for the link to the gallery of pictures Nissan provided us to use because I couldn’t find it myself on the Cube Club Canada forum and our “amazing, groundbreaking Hypercube community”, including @thehypercube, failed to help me out. So, uh…there are no pictures. [Pretend there's snark here. Originally there was but I thought better of it.]

Anyway, Blake told me that perhaps being honest with my answers yesterday was a bad move and if that’s the case then I guess elaborating on those thoughts in THIS post was a REALLY bad move, but whatever, I’m just trying to be realistic and avert disaster. Whether anyone believes it or not, I care a great deal as to the outcome of this “experiment” and win or lose, as a student of advertising I don’t want to see it fail. I hope I’ve done a good enough job of conveying that and it is my hope that I won’t be penalized for having an opinion that may differ from others.

So since my dinner’s here and Lost is on, I guess that’s all I really have to say. Please please please keep voting, there are only 17 days left, and before I finish this entry, lemme throw up a couple of fansigns:

Sara from Vancouver thinks I need a Cube!

Lexi from Barrie, Ontario not only thinks that I’d look good in a Cube, but she also thinks that you should vote every single day and send me more fansigns!

Here’s the info:

Register to vote at Hypercube.ca, log in and then click on each of these links to vote for our audition canvases:

Sunny’s Audition Canvas | Blake’s Audition Canvas

See? Easy! That took a whopping what, 30 seconds at most from start to finish? And guess what? You can do this EVERY DAY to greatly improve our rank which greatly improves our chances of winning the cars!

On Facebook? Join our event and invite friends! We need all the help we can get!

Another way to help is by sending me fansigns to put in blog posts on my site. If you need inspiration on what to do for your fansign, please visit the gallery of those before you and take a look. :o)

Thanks in advance and a huge thanks to those who have been voting every day and supporting us all along. <3