Progress? Any will do!

It's been a sluggish week, what can I say? I've been wracking my brain over this painting background, trying to find the perspective the unites everything and it's blown a few fuses. But, hey, I *can* still color this design!

Now I get to throw it into the crappy CafePress store in hopes of making a sale or two from it. SO EFFICIENT! Unless I can get, like, 25 preorders (and find a printer that does full color on the cheap) that's my only option. Eh, getting a $4 commission is better than getting nothing at all!

Quietly judging you

I've been looking for shirt ideas, and the folks over at the Precocious forums delivered. This scene was a favorite, so I reproduced it in larger, t-shirtable form. Next stop: Coloring!

Max Power

Here is the colored version of the Max commission. I hope you guys like this color, because it took me four tries to get something I liked and I'm out of any usable prints. (I can still redo it easy enough if the printer cooperates.)

As usual, the color quality of this one isn't great because all the colors are faint. This is the best photo I could get. My scanner, I remind you, is designed for black and while line art - so it dropped out ALMOST EVERYTHING when I tried to scan it! Scanner, I love you, but you only do one thing well.

WE CAN DO IT!

Calamity struck today as my printer went whacko and prevented me from successfully printing out the Max commission for finishing, so I had to move on. Another commission was suggested with Suzette as Rosie the Riveter, and I am all for that! It was fun, if difficult, to draw!

And then I forgot to post it for two hours, missing my midnight deadline. DAMMIT! I can't do it after all.

Oh, there she is.

Here's the first look at the coloring of the much-anticipated Dionne/Autumn painting! This is just me laying down a base of color. Everything needs several more layers, but it looks promising, doesn't it?

Because of the perspective thing, I am tempted to finally paint a background - although I'm not sure what it'd be. That would add a ton more hours to the piece, but it could be nice. For now, I focus on the figures.

Battling midnight

*Phew* barely made it this time. I swear, midnight comes earlier every day! *My* days are from when I wake to when I sleep... but all these deadlines don't agree with me! Ahh, but my heroics pulled it off in the end!

Here is the line art for the Arbiter of Information commission. We have Max in his open, nice guy pose. Now the drawing goes for review, and if it's approved we move on to the coloring stage! For that, I am open to ideas. I have no idea how Max's outfit is colored. In my mind, it was white and gray - but that could be boring. Is that his regular red shirt under the robe, or is it something more color coordinated? Is his staff thingy gold, silver or what? This is why I make multiple copies of the linework. It lets me experiment.

Show me.... Dionne!

Sorry this post is a day late and half progress. It's a day late because I was working on Precocious bonus stuff (you'll find out soon) and it's half progress because the day is still young. I'm going to keep working on this thing, but I wanted to get a post up. Besides, all you're missing at this stage is some paint sketching and linework.

Since I'm still struggling with creating the perfect horrified Autumn (I do have one nice sketch I may use) I'm forging ahead with the painting of Dionne in her British prep school outfit. This is always the hardest stage of the painting: Transitioning the sketch to the canvas. Fortunately, I used the money from a prior painting commission to buy a projector! The projector is a pain in the arse, but when I finally get it working look at how fun it is! Also, look how crappy my wall is. Dang.

The Arbiter of Information

So here's the sketches for my latest commission, which is about... well, you can guess that. Click the image for a larger version.

Happy post: Better than a whiny post!

As most of you know by now, I have been admitted to the sequential art masters program at the Savannah College of Art and Design! It has been one great emotional high since the news reached me. Now starts a new chapter in my life, and it couldn't come soon enough!

When I got home from DC, I completely crashed. TOO MUCH DAY! Now begins the next step of nailing everything down, finding myself an apartment and looking at what this means for Precocious.

For the comic, one this is clear. The updating schedule *will* be scaled back when things get intense. I don't plan on doing it for the immediate future, but know it's coming. I hope I can still pull off a solid update schedule through school, because I fully expect to absorb the AMAZING creative energy that comes from DOING WHAT I LOVE FOR A REASON! I am going to school so I can become the BEST CARTOONIST EVER and that means more Precocious love, not less. Even when I'm not doing Precocious, I will probably be doing other side comics for your consumption. (This blog might turn into a journal comic for all I know.) We'll have to wait and see. So don't worry! Think of it this way: My GRADES (and scholarship) depends on me being a kickass cartoonist, so I have even more reasons to kick cartooning's ass!

Today is for coming down from my celebration. Tomorrow I bring the Max sketches for my latest commission. (Commissions are very important this summer, as grad school is extremely expensive and I need all the cash I can get.) Monday I hope to have progress on my Dionne/Autumn painting. It's time to get back to work.

Thanks to everyone for their great energy and support!

Family gets in the way of everything

So I'm back in DC again, on short notice and for a short visit, and I am once again shocked at how much time family eats up! I had sketches to do, dammit!

OK so it was good fun and nice bonding. STILL! I was counting on some down time to catch up. If I owe you an email or some sketches, I apologize. Email will have to wait until tomorrow, and the best I could sketch in the small window I had is seen above. (I will do better tomorrow.)

Today has been full of dark omens and miscues. For one, I have been trying to get in contact with my admissions counselor at SCAD. She called me and the message on the machine was simply "call me back." WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!? Freaking out, I call her back. Get her voice mail. I leave a message and try again a few hours later. Voice mail. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I cannot reach this woman who is tormenting me with her elusiveness. AM I IN OR NOT!? Argh, gotta get on the road.

When I tried to shut down my computer so I could get on the road, Microsoft decided that would be the time to do 15 farking updates! While it did its thing, I went to talk to my mother (who was there recovering from a major medical miscue that ruined HER day) to kill time. After a while, I went back to find my computer powered off. Ok, so it's done! I pack up and drive to DC, encountering MAJOR ROADWORK - followed by MORE MAJOR ROADWORK with a chaser of MAJOR ROADWORK! One lane roads 4evah!

I get to my grandparents place and the first thing I see is a pot of dead basil. It seems my bro was trying to care for his girlfriend's plants while she was out of the country. He failed. So dead plants. What a welcome!

I get inside and no one seems to be around. This is a house of elders, so I assumed they were taking naps. I head upstairs to see my grandmother and aunt are no where to be seen. I decide to check on my Alzheimer's grandfather only to walk in on him getting a sponge bath from his nurse. Awesome. You know what, I'm going to skip the introduction and go set up my computer.

Power on. Booting up. KABLAMMO! There is gibberish on my screen instead of the welcome screen. AWW FUDGE! I power it down and start it again. "Windows did not start properly, would you like to run the diagnostic?" Sure. By this time, my grandmother and aunt are back from the store, so I go up and visit for a bit with them. I come back down a few minutes later to see a new error message telling me I am completely screwed and the only solution is to do a system restore. I say no. It again says the error cannot be fixed by Microsoft and my computer is ruined forever. GODDAMMITSOMUCH! Those updates blew up my computer!

So I do what any rational person would do. I refuse to listen to Microsoft and try to reboot again. The screen goes black. I wait. It flickers. I wait. It flickers some more. I get worried.

"Now configuring updates 1 of 3"

*facepalm* So either I mistakenly unplugged and packed up my computer before it was done updating, or Microsoft decided to fail miserably and pile on. At least my computer works now, NO THANKS TO THE DAMN UPDATES!

Relieved my computer actually works, I go back upstairs to listen to my aunt talk about her magical trip to Australia. (Jealousy!) Grandma calls down that a friend of the family is coming over. Yay! Then she comes down to announce another friend of the family is coming. Double yay! Also, overwhelming! We socialize for a while. Bro comes home and replaces one of the friends who had to leave. We party well into the evening before breaking up.

Now I have only two hours and change to get everything done by midnight. Bro then extends the invitation to watch Battlestar Galactica with him. Oh hell, I am not turning that down! I love BSG, and bro bonding is nice. (Here is where I learn that my arrival was very inconvenient for him as he's hosting an all-weekend geekfest in my room. Whoops.) I try to sketch during BSG, but nothing I get is great. It's time for his bed, I break away, and here I am.

I am exhausted!

ONLY ONE DAY HAS PASSED!

I don't care what the calendar says! All that time simply does not count. It has only been one functional day for me. Everything else was a non-canon blur.

It's been a rough week or so. My sleep schedule went totally out of whack. I'd be up 30 hours, down 12 hour, up 24 hours, down 18 hours and COMPLETELY WIPED OUT the whole time. I haven't had a restful night of sleep yet this month. I hope to correct that tonight. If I was so tired I couldn't be productive, then that day didn't count. That week. That whatever. Anyway I hope the worst is over. At least the worst sleep-wise.

Now it's time to play catch-up. For the painting, I am now at the worst stage: Getting the final sketch on the canvas. I can break out the projector, but it's still a crazy hassle to get it PERFECT. And I demand perfection. That stunned Autumn sketch is going to cause some more problems before it's done. It's a long-term project, so I'm taking my time to get it right.

I'm still open for business with other commissions, if you'd like to support your local starving cartoonist. Despite disappearing for a while, I *do* stick to deadlines when it's important!

On the comic front, things are still good - so no panic is needed. I'm still mulling over the next story arc, but I think you guys needed some gag-a-day refreshers anyway. Copper Road is going to remain on hiatus while I burn off all my deleted scene incentives. Still gotta get my brain back in CR mode for scripting, but I'm not worrying about it yet. From where I see it, Precocious is the one that matters. Everyone else is a bonus, so I won't cry if I miss a vote incentive or fail to blog for a few days. The goal is to have good stuff when I present it!

OK, enough talking about work. It's time to actually DO the work. That pile of comics isn't going to ink itself! (Oh, but I wish it would...)