Last-minute epiphanies

I'm a strange place with the current Precocious storyline. I know where it's going, but I also have MANY paths I can take to get there. There *was* a plan for this week, but I am having second thoughts about it. Originally the school rebellion was going to be cut short in the main strip, with the Copper Roads filling in the gaps. It was then pointed out to me that doing so would only work for THIS week, then the chaos is lost to time. That's no good! Maybe I should move the rebellion back into the main plot.

That, of course, complicates everything. First of all, I NO LONGER HAVE A COPPER ROAD to post! This kinda sucks, as it's already overdue. Second, I have to reorganize the scripts to fit everything together so the Sunday falls on Sunday. Third, I need to think up, script and produce the strips... tomorrow. Damn, I wish I had thought of this change earlier. It's going to be tough for me to make my deadlines, but I'll try.

Oh yeah, and I have to do this WHILE TRAVELING! I've been called into DC, where it's really hard to make comics, AND I have the pressure of working day to day on what might turn out to be a bunch of double strips! Awesome! This is gonna suck! At least the strips should be great.

So in the end, we're gonna lose a Copper Road - but gain a bonus week of Precocious! That's a trade-off worth making, right?

Painting for the people!

It's been a comic work day, but that wouldn't give me anything to show here. Time for a painting break!

Not much progress, but it's something. I tried out a few new colors to see if they meshed, with decidedly mixed results. Time for more outlining? That solves all my problems!

Where did my files go?

Today has not been my day on the Precocious front. First of all, Tuesday's strip has been a killer for me. It's simple! It's easy! It... REQUIRES ME TO DRAW STRAIGHT LINES! This is something I cannot do. I had to draw doors - friggin' doors - and I have not been able to do it. My final result was to draw two crappy doors are copy/paste, which is a new low for my comic. Ugh.

With that resounding victory, I went to upload my latest comic. I did the same thing I always did, clicking the "strips" folder to open. I moved my mouse back to the other side of the FTP, selected my strip and moved it over. To empty space. See, somehow my FTP decided I *actually* wanted to delete EVERY SINGLE STRIP from my site. NOOOOOOO!

Hey, friends, let's just make this worse! I re-upload all the strips I had in the folder. The OLD folder. With the OLD numbering. Ahh! Fix it! Fix it! Fix it!

Anyway, I *hope* I have everything right. My BIG fear here is that I've accidentally re-uploaded old strips with typos that I've since fixed. I'll have to reply on the readers to point this stuff out - possible YEARS down the road! Hooray!

Daddy's tired

I am dealing with less friends than yesterday, but I'm all tired out from socializing. You're lucky I got Monday's strip done in time! Anyway, this is my lone sketch of the day. Tomorrow I'll be more rewarding.

I have friends today!

I did a few sketches, but my day is devoted to socializing. This is a rare event, so let me have it!

The friendly hermit

Work on the "I hate everyone" painting is continuing - in spite of some people being nice to me! I think it's becoming more of a "this is what I can do" statement than the "so shove it" part of the motive. I still may start mass murdering or supervillaining at any moment, but at least I'll do it with modernist flare!

On the comic front, I'm trying to get a few days ahead. I'm pretty bad at using my free time right now. I've been playing too hard, so free days end up "sleep like the dead" or "walk like a zombie" days. It's Friday, though! While normal people go out and play, I use the silence to get as much work done as I can.

There's no time for swirly colors!

I have a comic to do, dammit! Oh, whatevs. THE ARTIST'S SOUL MUST BE SATISFIED!

I tried a new trick with this painting: I turned to twitter for inspiration! Twitter IGNORED MY PLEAS! Go to hell, everyone on twitter! New painting idea: Everyone on Twitter sucks! I'm all alone in a vast uncaring universe because people are too infatuated with themselves to lend a hand! Wait, that's stupid and cliche. New new painting idea: I'm paranoid and whiny because I don't get enough attention. All I can do is thrive on my own and make everyone else look the fool for not acknowledging my supremely obvious awesomeness! Vengeance shall be mine!

Well. vengeance shall be mine in a bit. A good friend is coming to visit this weekend and that means I need to get the comic far enough ahead that I don't have to worry about it. That means I have to get my Sunday strip knocked out TODAY. Ack! At least it should be relatively simple. It's only three panels! Bonus: It contains a joke I've been trying to fit in for over a year! Yay!

Portrait of the inside of my head?

No, it's not about my clear insanity - it's about my teeth! Complete chaos? Nothing aligning quite right? A bit of decay at the bottom? Yeah, sounds like my mouth. Artists like me are so deep.

I'm nearly done with this bit of playing around. On to the next one?

Cool color is cool

As foretold by the gods, I have indeed swapper out the yellow in my latest painting for pistacio (and pale olive)! I like this much better, although there's still a long ways to go before this is worthy of even a cheap hotel room wall. (Dream big!)

I'm still getting the color situation straightened out. A lot of my typical black and white outlining might do wonders here. If not, I'll probably do it anyway BECAUSE I CAN'T CONTROL MYSELF!

Shane! Come back, Shane!

Well, he's been drawing my characters enough, so I'll return the favor! What we have here is my drawing of Al S. Romero's character Shane, the dingo. I wish my scanner handled colored pencil better, but that's the price I pay for it working so excellently on the comics. Anyway, enjoy it, Al!