a kid is studying to be a Samurai/Martial Artist...
his two friends are also studying, but with different masters. 

One of them is a slacker who doesn't try hard, but he blames his inexperienced and not famous teacher for his own failings. His friend has the same teacher but works super hard and still gets pretty good over a long period of time. 

the third student has a famous teacher. The slacker envies him, thinking he's good because of his teacher, but that is only part of it. The slacker doesn't find out till later that the motivated friend with his same teacher is actually the best of all 3 of them because he tries so hard.

so, the whole story is celebrating taking personal responsibility for your life. 

So, I would need to develop a visual code of objects and animals and such to describe different meanings, then build coded paintings out of those symbols. 
I don't want them just to look like boring still lifes, so will have to figure out how to address that in the process. 

Pantheon of Gods are at war with the Titans or other evil race. 
Some of them like Humans and try to protect them. 
Each god could belong to a city. Like the Sumerians. Maybe they are an embodiment of that city. 

Songs

Themes

Human Desires

Love--good and bad aspects

Imagination as a tool?

Poetry or the written word... even the telephone book, newspaper articles or other banal sources for inspiration

For a crazy Hick dad, the apocalypse is the greatest thing that has ever happened to him. Overnight he has gone from being an unemployed loser to where his skills of fishing, hunting and shooting set him up to be a hero. Especially he can use his skills to win back the love of his estranged children. 
And in the process he sheds his alcoholism and repairs his self confidence as well.

Pop culture Icons like Britney Spears or Lady Gaga used as a metaphor to express frustrations of modern American life...
example: Mickey Mouse and Britney Spears hunt down and murder a Starbucks Barista using props from their film or music career as weapons. The Starbucks barista may have coffee related weapons? Or a strange mermaid for backup? 
The example's a little mixed up, but there may be an idea here.

Note: the name of the character was inspired by the pet of an ex girlfriend, so would likely change the name. 

Hamster Champion

1 Pumpkinbear at dinner with family, announces Olympic dream. Dad insists she should work at the Yogie factory like him. (Yogies are a hamster food treat that the little critters just love). 
2 Pumpkinbear tours the Yogie factory with dad, dad talks about Yogies, so "delicious and nutritious!" 
3 Pumpkinbear at school--teacher and students tease her when she writes about the Olympics in her "what I want to be when I grow up" essay. 
4 Pumpkinbear training montage... like in Rocky.
5 Something goes wrong--Oh no! Pumpkinbear has to discover her inner strength to over come
6 Pumpkinbear makes it to the Olympics against all the odds!
7 Pumpkinbear becomes the champion! The family is finally so proud of her!


Book 2: Pumpkinbear wants to be an astronaut.

--Werewolf

--film noir action 

--Robot helping/saving people

--Robot menial jobs

--Fairies

--King Arthur

--Robin Hood

--Mashups--Star wars, star trek

--Dracula

Can mashup, collage, or transform pop culture and mythology sources to try to create a new dialogue.

--Gizmo from "gremlins" movies

--r2d2 from star wars

--cowboys

--pinup girls

--ball gowns

--hamsters and cute pets

--police, uniforms, authoritarianism

--zombies, zombie apocalypses

Not an idea for paintings or writing really, just a general observation on my thought processes in my work: 

My ideas are not sharpened, piercing insights or answers. Mostly, they are cloudy, confused questions, and refusals to accept those answers that want to intrude. Therefore, I'm confused most of the time in my work.

I don't justify it, it's just the way I am... but maybe there is some benefit to it... at least it keeps me seeking and exploring, anyway.

A new type of entrepeneurism in the arts. 
Youtube, Patreon, Crowdfunding of various kinds. 
Individual artists are starting to build their own followings, some even from the age of high school and junior high school.

The danger here is that the formats of internet and video may support a certain type of artist (charming, socially active, pleasing on the eyes, or simply a skilled businessman or businesswoman who knows how to promote themselves.) An insecure or awkward of socially unskilled artist (or someone who simply doesn't care to "play that game") may get left out here, even though they have very interesting work and ideas. 

Also, there is a danger that artists start changing their ideas, watering them down or catering to the interests of a large group of people instead of following the natural progression of the ideas themselves. For some people, this dialogue is believed to create naturally superior artworks anyways... this is the idea that communication with people, and creating ideas that resonate with masses of people, is the purpose of art. 

But if you believe (as I do, at least 3 days every week) that the true purpose of art is more like science, to experiment with ideas and visuals and try to discover new things (even if you constantly fail, that's all part of experimenting)... if you believe that, then maybe you're concerned about how these changes may be leaving some artists behind even as they help out many others.  

The two confusing aspects of money and success... for artists especially, but really for everyone else as well.

1. Pursuit of money and success can corrupt your real and actual believed values until you become a soulless, dishonest shell of a person. (can show many tangible examples of this).
So, is the success you think you've achieved actually worth anything? Does it actually mean anything that you have proved you're more skilled than others in one particular domain of life?

HOWEVER,

2. Trying to "get out of the game" or even just not putting out enough effort in the smartest strategic directions (like having a weak portfolio when you need a strong, targeted art portfolio to get work), or another example, just trying to smoke weed and relax because you believe in peace and love and relaxation more than in "running the rat race". The paradox to this is that there is a real risk of enduring incredible amounts of pain and suffering if you try to reject the values of society in this way. (lots of tangible examples of wrecked and wasted lives here, as well).
So, is the misery you endure productive or justifiable in any way?

This is the paradox between trying to live a life according to your beliefs and living a life according to the pursuit of success. 


Note: for people to whom the pursuit of success aligns perfectly with their personal beliefs, there is literally no conflict to experience here... I'm just not certain I believe that that is absolutely true for anyone. 
I think most of us are compromising in some way, then lying to ourselves that we are being pure and not letting ourselves down in any way. Probably both poles are just impossible for any human to fulfill and still stay true to ourselves and others. 

Getting a little deeper into the idea of celebrity. 
The disfunctional relationship we all have with the concept and reality of fame.
How famous people are treated, who they are, why they're famous, and how it affects them and the rest of us. 
Includes drugs, personal appearances and insecurities, the effect of the media, the distancing yet intimate effect of viewing things through a movie camera, etc

So essentially its about a type of strange mystical surrealist experience and abstraction which is also surprisingly a hardened and very actual, tangible part of our real world and society.

The concept of family. What it means to me... what it means to other people. Abuses and love and the whole messy picture. 
How our family affects our sense of self. 

Social structure changes and hierarchies vs the somewhat unchanging realities of life. 

For example, the evolving connection between survival and socially appeasing the people around you... an abstract construction that dictates your real life conditions.
Meaning, if you keep offending people, quit jobs whenever you're angry, etc and you could end up homeless and miserable.
People think this is justice... but that is not a proven fact.
The difference between this situation and directly hunting up your food or growing it, is a somewhat interesting concept. 

Overall this is a pretty vague and open-ended idea. Could be any meditations about social structures and how they have changed over time. But perhaps, the idea would be about how it seems like we're all feeling kind of stressed by trying to keep up with expectations of society. 

--Unicorn-head guy going to work in a crowd

--Minotaur in an office (cubicle?)

--Robots gossiping at the water cooler (in 0s and 1's?)

--Robot boss firing sad human worker

--Awesome robot assistant helping his human buddy
(fetching slippers, cleaning house, cooking, driving the car as a chauffer)

--Robot carrying tons of stuff while human owner shops

--Robot pets

--Sex-bots

--Drone quadcopters dropping pizza from the air

--Drone aircraft filming people having sex (or other private moments)

--Robot police arresting people

--Climate change?

--People living in an ideal future world--sunny, fun, minimal labor, cool technology, happy happy

​--Dark matter, dark energy? 

Paintings about working but not making progress... working hard but your ideas chasing themselves in circles, not advancing your ideas into new territory due to your life being too stale, or being discouraged, or not being able to focus, or some other external or internal troubles you're simply not able to identify. 
Basically, your human frailties keeping you from making progress toward your goals. 
In a way, I want to both show both sides--to show the pain of this experience--but also to celebrate the opposite attitude, that maybe we don't always need to justify our existence by impressing ourselves or others with some new dazzling shiny thing.

As the title describes. Not an illustration, just try to capture how I feel when I listen to the song.

Not sure how to expand this idea... but taking the classic myth and seeing how it applies to modern life... maybe repetitive tech jobs?

Not sure the proper format... just, I guess an idea of lots of broken people who have very different damage trying to support each other through life... perhaps a story about a fictional online group who can't sleep? 

Unfulfilled Commercial Products. 
Junkyard of imagination=Magic.
They could be projects that I've failed at, or they could be blueprints for projects that I can just never achieve. They can be plans and blueprints for projects that are simply too expensive or foolish to ever be worthwhile, but are fun to think about. 

Example: the solid gold Goofy (from Disney) statue that is the size of the Burj Khalifa, launched into outer space to orbit the earth. 
Note: this idea preceded Elon Musk launching a Tesla driven by a mannequin into space by about three years... so it was more original at the time. 

Still, it could simply be any plan of that nature that is simply too ambitious. However, it should be spelled out and documented as though I'm seriously going to work on it. 

Also, a related idea is a Gallery that only displays blueprints, sketches, post it notes and other preliminary materials, for failed or impossible projects. 

Could use failed side projects, illustration portfolio, concept art, 3d etc and remix them somehow to be used as a collaged fine art project about failure and destruction as Process. 

Modern interpretations of the concept of Heaven and Hell... could involve economic situations, could involve justice, could involve critiques of how humans pervert religion to their own goals... First image that came to mind was two kids playing by the river, but the side that is Hell has scorpions, toxic waste, etc while the Heaven side of the river is all nice and clean and pretty, butterflies and magic and so on...

Basically, the Worst of the Best. For example, the worst NFL player ever... it's just so interesting that his skill level would be almost godlike compared to a normal person or even a college athlete, but at the NFL level he looks like a total clown. Not sure what this means for the rest of us... but it seems to have a little resonance. 
Especially since our lives are so based on competition. Our romantic lives, our jobs, everything comes through competition... to some extent, at least, perhaps not totally. So there's something relatable about that person who fails on the grandest stage. You are embarrassed for him, yet on a deep level you  know you probably have more in common with him than with the Hall of Famer like Tom Brady who practically never makes a mistake on the field. 

Simple, just paintings about things I like and care about. Could be specific people, could be the feeling of the sun on my face, could be the taste of gelato on a hot summer day.

Kinda like GIFs or Memes... news items that are cringey, wierd or embarrassing, illustrating multiple angles of reality... example, the Iraqi dude that threw his shoe at GW Bush and his fast ducking manuever.