Saint Tiffany

The painting is complete! It may look identical to the last scan, except for the two new candles, but I can assure you the quality is much nicer than before. I decided against any more background trickery, as it looked great after the second coat of crimson. Besides, one errant stroke would have ruined everything!

Now the quest is to knock that Sunday strip out today. Things are looking dim for it, but I'll do my best. It's scary how little of Precocious' future I have scripted at this point. I have next week roughly laid out, and then it's really sketchy. There's a big storyline brewing, but it hasn't taken form yet. The pieces are close to snapping into place, but the brain just isn't providing the funny at the moment. It'll come.

A pen and ink lifestyle

Instead of sketching today I watched Deep Space Nine DVDs. Ok, I also worked on actual factual comics, but that doesn't sound as pathetic. Or maybe it does, depending on how you value such things. So the bad news is today's post is rather boring. The good news is that you care way more about the comics than this blog, so the sacrifice is worth it! Work on this week's Precocious is moving nicely, and the next Copper Road is ready to go!

I had planned to finish up the St. Tiffany painting today, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. (I hope.) Truth is, I was too lazy to set things up today for painting. It requires me rearranging the room a bit, and some days that's more energy than I can muster. Tomorrow I'll redecorate, I swear! Crap, tomorrow I also have to get the Sunday strip ready to ship off to the colorist too! I swear! Damn, tomorrow I'm gonna have to work for real! I swear!

I also wasted a perfectly good blog title on a perfectly bad blog post. I swear...

This ruins my procrastination plans!

I enjoy video games as much as the next man, but I'm very picky about which ones I play. I don't have the patience for a lot of what is out these days. I like turn-based RPG stuff, like Final Fantasy Tactics. I like games where I can pull off funky tricks by using the rules of the world - such as my expert pokemon breeding experiments! Bascially, if I am going to sink hours of my precious life into something, I want it to be on MY terms. If I like a game, I will go all out with it - but if it FORCES ME then it's hissy fit time.

One of my all-time favorite games is The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the DS. It's Zelda! How can Zelda ever be bad? It uses the touchscreen of the DS wonderfully! It keeps everything fresh, making each level of gameplay fun! I like it so much, I don't mind that I've never beaten it! (Stupid final boss.) Needless to say, I was friggin' thrilled when I found out a new Zelda game in the DS style was out! The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks! Instead of traveling on a boat, you travel by train. Fair enough. Even if it's a damn clone of Hourglass, I'll be happy.

What a crushing disappointment that game is. It's like they took all the least-awesome elements from Hourglass, highlighted them, and made everything move at half-speed. This game has been a joyless experience so far, and I'm debating whether to keep trying with it. Right now, I am stuck on a tutorial where I have to play a flute. To play it, I move the flute around with the stylus and blow into the microphone, like I was playing a real flute. Inventive!

FRUSTRATING! It's not fun to do this, and I can't seem to do it correctly, meaning I am stuck repeating this annoying task until Mr. Tutorial lets me go. You know, guys, the music part of these games is supposed to be SIMPLE. Heck, Hourglass didn't bother with it at all - WHICH WAS A GREAT IDEA! So far this game has been all "innovative" DS tricks and no actual fun.

At least I didn't pay for it. I used an Amazon gift card some fool gave my internet-averse mother.

I had such high hopes for this game, and I was ready to devote myself to hours of game play. Now what do I do? Is this going to be the second game in a row that I failed due to DS innovation. (The World Ends With You was fun, but way too complex. Tying all bonus material to a damn minigame was a BAD IDEA, guys!) I don't want tricks for the sake of being tricky. I don't want something so complex the learning curve is insanely steep. I want a solid GAME to play. Why is this so hard? How am I going to waste my life now? All I have to do now is work!

(And yet I'm procrastinating anyway!)

Rambling in paint

Who would have thought a painting about being frustrated with my productivity would frustrate me with my lack of productive work on it? Crazy, huh? I'm trying to salvage this painting, but it's at a scary point right now. The way I had it was too simple to fit into the collection, but right now the complexity has no flow or direction. At it stands, the only thing this painting communicates is "this is my style!" and nothing else.

The only way to progress to it flail wildly for a while, which could actually be kinda fun! I'll throw whatever colors pop into my head into the bugger and see what takes. I also might want to switch the background color. The warm tone really isn't working for it. I think a nice flat gray would do it, but I have no paint for that. (Before you point it out, it's really hard to mix that much black and white and keep the gray consistent.) Eh, I'll figure something out.

Blah to the blahs!

Hey, look, actual progress! I'm going into week two of the blahs here and it's nice to have some signs that my productivity is returning. I like when I have real stuff to show on the sketch blog, because it means I'm doing MORE than my daily obligations. Just getting by isn't enough. I must shoot for the moon! I will destroy the moon!

The St. Tiffany painting is closing in on completion. Some detailing is still needed, but the big point of contention is the background. While it scanned nicely, let me tell you it's blotchy and wildly uneven at this point. Crimson just isn't opaque enough for my liking! (Note that it didn't cover up the candles I eliminated at all.) Solution: ADD MORE WHITE! WHITE COVERS ALL MISTAKES! I'm not sure yet how I'm going to whiten things up, but I'm leaning towards a light crimson background with darker swirls or something for texture. I'll have to do some experimenting.

My mind is already starting to wander onto the next commission, with Dionne and Max. It's going to be a larger piece and probably the hardest one yet - it's very hard to get two figures to be in sync proportionately. If I had a projector, it would be easy - but I'm not blowing $200 to make a $100 painting easier. That's not sensible! I've done ok so far with copying sketches, so all will be right and good in the end. Bah, I should stop thinking in the future anyway - I can't afford to neglect the present much more!

Another comic that never was

It's been another slow day workwise, but I'm keeping at it. To keep you interested, here's a sample from last Sunday's comic that didn't run. I've deleted the dialog, as I wish to remake this strip down the road.

If I'm lazy, I can turn this into TWO strips! One will be the original gag with a new drawing, and the second can be this drawing with new dialog! Now if only I could think of some dialog...

Hit the snooze button

Oooh, I made a biiiig mistake last night. I forgot to set my alarm. Decompression sleep ensued, complete with just about every anxiety dream one could have! Damn you, subconscious! Why must you hate me so? Anyway, oversleeping limited the amount of work I could do (not to mention motivation) and I never go around to making a nice sketch to share. Whoops.

I did however do lots of work! My webdesign binge has continued, with a FAQ demo now up. I also played around with reworking the archive page, but nothing great came of that. Website aside, I sketched out the remaining strips for this week, with inking hopefully to come later tonight.

What I didn't do was all the writing. That requires a clear and snappy mind, which I did not possess today. Fingers are crossed that I can get a chunk of it done tomorrow. Some of that stuff is time sensitive, as in "should have been done MONTHS AGO" - bah!

In the end, I may not have a scribble to show for it, but I turned what could have been a crappy day into something somewhat productive. Take the victories when you can!

Playoff bound

So I've been rambling to a friend about football! football! football! I had had a lousy ride home - stuck for an hour with the interstate shut down! - and I needed some rambling time to burn off steam, ok? As I explained the playoffs and added my opinions - my many opinions - my eye turned to the pile of "I should stop ignoring these" papers on my desk. At the top, were my old football sketches from October 2008. They had hung over my scanner since then. I had recently taken them down, as the character designs had evolved quite a bit - and I kept knocking them out of place when scanning.

It was time to do some updating. Ahh, the memories! At the time of drawing, the Redskins were 6-2 and cruising... on their way to horrible failure! The Patriots were in command of their division and knew they were golden... until they slacked too much and missed the playoffs on a tiebreak. The other six teams I support were all miserable failures... until the Chargers somehow pulled a miracle to win the division. (The rest remained sucky.) What would be the update?

This season, my teams fared a bit better. Roddy's Chargers, Dionne's Patriots and Suzette's Packers all made the postseason. Time for an update in drawings! Well, at least in simple sketchy form. I like seeing some smiling faces on my football fans, dangit! Now if only the other five teams can pull themselves out of their misery...

I may want to go back and redo them all, for the new year! I still have that sketchbook, so I can make them the correct size. Roddy at least needs to be redone, as his character design changed muchly since he was first drawn.

In the end, this is really not interesting at all - but it did give me something to draw on a day when I'd have been happy to nap it away!

I remembered how to paint!

Sorry for not posting yesterday. I never managed to get the free time to do anything significant. You might say it's a bad sign to start the new year that way, but I say the new year doesn't begin until I get home! Grandparents' house time is non-canon! You'll also note I never said I'd keep blogging daily in my resolutions. I'm in the clear! (I do intend to blog every day, since it keeps me active, but I won't cry if I miss a day occasionally.)

Anyway, I finally got time to set up for painting! I wanted to be done with the Saint Tiffany painting by now, but I'll settle for good progress. I hope to finish this up within a week, so I can begin work on the Max/Dionne dance painting. What you see here is the first layer of coloring. The groundwork has been laid for the final coats, assuming the coloring is acceptable. The big gamble is the crimson background. I went with it because it's a St. Lucia color, and I'm fairly pleased with how it looks. I might touch it up with some white for the final, but that's one of the last steps. I can always change it and move the crimson back to the robe if desired.

I still have a long ways to go with this thing, but it's nice to see it shaping up. Here's to finishing it up soon!

New Years Revolutions

The unholy rebels in my soul have risen up to conquer the ruling procrastination regime of my brain. Death to the ivory tower eggheads! Up with productivity! Long live hope and change! Viva la revolucion!

Of course, such battles are long, bloody affairs with many casualties. (Sanity? First to go.) But we must fight for what is right and good! It hurts, but it's a good kind of hurt.

So now it's time for me to make some OFFICIAL resolutions for the new year. This is the day of optimism, and I intend to ride it! Here we go, with them in no particular order.

- I will keep Precocious going strong! This is intentionally open to interpretation, as changes may be in store. I want to keep going with the current format as long as I can, but I may have to scale things back slightly to fit in all these other resolutions. Don't panic yet! I'm just being cautious here. Ideally things remain as awesome as they are now.

- I will get my lazy butt into grad school. This one is major, as I've dilly-dallied far too long now. Granted, I've had my reasons, with all the chaos going on in my family. It's very hard for me to leave right now, but I've given myself over for two years now. I'm going to be in my 30's before I start school again no matter what, but 30 is way better than 31! (I'm also desperately in need of a change in venue.)

- I will find a way to start making money from my cartooning. This means designing shirts and setting up a store. I want to create a Precocious book as well, but that may have to wait until I'm in grad school. I should set up an shop, on etsy or somewhere, where I can sell prints and paintings. My birthday gift to myself should be a quality printer, which can enable me to create prints and such to sell! On the website side, I have to consider ditching Project Wonderful for a more paying ad service. I like PW because it helps other comics, but I'm not making close to what I could with my readership and pageviews. I should also start attending conventions to learn how I can one day *successfully* attend them as a vendor.

- I will do better to enhance my presence in the comic community. My horrid antisocial tendency might doom me, but I want to make myself known. This involves posting more on message boards, READING all those webcomics sites that I've been ignoring and becoming somewhat likable on twitter. I should reach out to other cartoonists and build more friendships. Once people know me, attending conventions becomes a little less intimidating!

- I will finish my Little Anxieties painting series. This can take all year, but I want it done. (Commissioned paintings do come first, after all!) If I get it done, I can start looking for galleries to display the series. (Getting into grad school might help me here!)

- I will work on improving and expanding my art skills. I want to learn how to use watercolors, so I can be like Bill Watterson! Ink and watercolor Precocious paintings make more sense than forcing acrylics to work like drawing. (Drawback: Watercolors and ink drawings do require me to mat them.) I also want to work on drawing furry. As I wrote a few days ago, I never set out to be a furry artist, but the fans sure seem to wish I was! This isn't just me giving in to pressure, it can potentially open up new illustration venues without starting from scratch and learning to draw comic humans. Human or furry, I must re-learn non-cartoony anatomy drawing. That would help me immensely, and likely make Precocious' drawing more dynamic.

- Like everyone else in history, I want to drop at least 10lbs. The stress from family crisis after crisis, combined with sedentary behavior has made me plump. I know I'm not fat, but any extra weight on my scant frame looks bad! I'd love to start exercising again, focusing on cardio, but I'll settle for better eating/living habits. When I visit the grandparents, I need to have more willpower - everything here is drenched in butter! If I have to start bringing my own snacks here, then so be it.

- I want to end this year better than how I started it. As you can see from these resolutions, many tie into each other. Getting into grad school gets me into a better environment, which enables my art skill-building and improves my health. Improved art and spirits help me find the energy to keep Precocious going AND do the extra work to get the store going and socialize. Becoming more social in the comic community gets me more readers and earns me invites to conventions, where I can make more bonds and potentially money! One good change encourages another.

So there we are. Let's check back in a year to see how I did. Heck, let's check back in two weeks, when grad school applications are due. (Good lord, I'm terrified!) My first test, of course, is probably my hardest one. Wish me luck!