D-d-d-drugs, they say, are made in California

"Why is the post title quoting Marilyn Manson?" you ask. Well, let me share the truly bizarre (and hilarious) line of dreams I had this morning...

This dream session came in two bursts. In the first, as I am wont to in dreams, I was walking a very long, narrow and dangerous bridge. At its peak, I got delayed due to a police investigation in front of me. There had been jumpers and they were fishing the people out of the water. Turns out this scary woman approached a learning disabled guy and convinced him to kill his brother. She then took him walking on the bridge and was going to get him to jump off, making it look like the brother acted alone and killed himself out of guilt. The LD guy freaked out and grabbed her as he fell, taking both down. Amazingly, both survived. The LD guy talked when they were rescued and the woman was going to jail. Way to suck at a plan, lady!

The reason I was on the bridge, it seems, was to deliver a robot to the military. I got into a combat base and brought the codes for a Wall-E robot type. Turns out this was a defensive robot, which quickly identified a hostile situation and disarmed it. That means, of course, he disarmed US! I had to turn him off and turn the defenses back on, but it was too late. The enemy had used the lapse to break in. (Damn you, Wall-E!) It was my job to aim two guns manually and take out the enemy. This sucked, as enemies from each entrance had a clear shot to me. I took out one, had two bullets barely miss me, and was calling for backup when my brain decided it’d had enough.

(I woke up, took my meds, and went back to sleep to dream some more!)

Dream series two started with a dream where my grandmother was having a party at the townhouse I lived at from age 4 to 8. In this dream, I guess the whole family was rich and spoiled rotten. My mother and her boyfriend entered, both acting spoiled and snotty, and the boyfriend told a story about how terrible it was that he left his scotch back at the cabin. The women compared name brand serving dishes and catering services. (Note: This is about as opposite as you can get for them.) I was quickly pushed from the scene and told to amuse myself. I had a credit card, no supervision, no limit and lots of bought friends. It was time to go nuts and storm my former college campus!

On campus, I ran into Bill Clinton. (I assume he was giving a speech there and not trolling for some tail, but I can’t be sure.) He gave me permission to sleep with Chelsea, saying she needed the attention. I used the excuse on Mandy Moore (seriously? her?), who was playing a Chelsea-like role in a movie that just happened to be filming on campus. The dream got more meta as it devolved into a playful fight between her movie boyfriend, real life boyfriend, movie dad and Bill Clinton. When asked if it was weird to be fighting for someone who was playing his daughter, Clinton said he wasn’t even sure Chelsea was his. All those watching the scene were laughing at the ridiculousness of it.

After the Clinton thing, I joined a rag-tag group of people who were trying to sneak into my old Shepherd University dorm. There were ridiculous antics that would fit the screwball parody film this obviously was. (One guy started a war cry, and kept going so long we had to muffle him. He may have died, since we forgot to un-muffle him. No one cared and we dumped him in the street.) I managed to blow the plan by talking within earshot of the person at the dorm desk. This would have been fine, but then everyone in the group spoke up and argued about the best way to get into this dorm. Each dorm had a different trick and some couldn’t remember which trick matched what. By the end, the entire team exposed itself by talking, so the plan was dashed while we could regroup. I went off to chat with a conspirator and an overweight woman followed us. When she found out it wasn’t about the assault, she joked about doing twice her daily exercise for nothing. She was a good sport and she introduced me to THE TRIPLETS! They were not even identical – also, they were about 60. Dammit!

Plan failed, I walked to the college library, where I heard my friend Courtney talking over the speaker system, giving a soul-crushing speech about the futility of life. It was hilariously thorough, and delivered in the tone of a mother reading her child a bedtime story. I went in to talk to her and found her casually deadpanning into a mic. She decided to talk me up a bit, which surprised me. I was told that what I did put me above the level of amateur and I deserved the promotion. This great skill: Arranging Chrispmas lights into patterns.

I managed to arrange a city scene, which promptly faded into the real setting. I was on a ridge overlooking the city, with some maintenance building on the ridge with me. It was something government-related, but I’m not sure what. I watched a plane fly by and drop some banners, which were caught by the wind and blown over my head. They were army recruitment banners, saying the military would pay for your college education. The last banner hit a flock of birds and came in too low. It crashed into a security guard’s vehicle, which was driven by Marilyn Manson. As he got out, pissed off over getting struck, a eagle holding a Navy banner flew overhead. It dropped the banner on a guy dressed as an angel, who was ALSO promoting the military. (I must assume the marines, as they do love to die in combat.) I went up to Manson, who was still upset, and we joked about calling it in: “Sir, we’ve been attacked! The US Military hit two people with recruitment banners. One was dressed as an angel. One was Marilyn Manson. Both were working for the government at the time -- OH FORGET IT!”

And that was just what I can remember. The question is… can I make art to go with this?

Presenting: The paint sketch of “Model City” – a painting based on looking out on my former city of lights! (Canvas is 48"x30")




Edit: Here's a shot of Model City, step two:

Why finish something when you can just start something else?

So I had one last canvas to defile. One last wrapped piece of potential. How could I have overlooked it all this time? I am nothing if not thorough in my painterly destruction! A new Maquette girl must enter this world!

Besides, I was royally fouling up the other paintings. Fresh start!



This is Mi Magnolia, known as "Maggie" because of her stupid name. ("Who's that?" "Oh, that's Mi." "You wish!") In Audde, the capital of my fictional territory Ardille, there is a clear division between the classes. The higher ups get to dance around in the architectural wankery that is a city built over a mountain valley. Not in. Over. It's pure showing off! The Ardillian elite also have a hard-on for pompous names that seem to come from lame fantasy stories. (Getting into meta humor here.) They can (mostly) pull it off, but those lower-class people always seen the need to imitate their superiors and they are not always as successful. Mi Magnolia sounds catchy and looks pretty on the page, but it's more of a bad movie title than a name.

So Maggie is class struggle personified. Her ticket into the upper class is to work as a personal trainer in the senate's gym, where she can charm powerful men who can't help but fantasize about a younger woman. (She's not that young, at 36, but is technically younger!) There's no doubt she has aspirations of breaking into the upper class, but questions surround her in regards to how far she will go. Does she genuinely like the people she chats with, or is she winning them over in a more salacious way? Does she want power for herself, or is there something more malicious behind her. She keeps writing in that notebook when she thinks no one is watching - is she a spy?

On the painting front, I had initially dismissed doing a Maggie piece because I wasn't sure I could capture enough of her. Where was I going to find an Asian woman who is fit, sort of blockheaded, with bangs and a ponytail? That seems a lot to ask for in a random Google search. It's not like I could think of a well-known actress who would fit the - hold on.... BAI LING! Her cartoonish features and hair are a perfect base for a painting! Maggie as I picture her would look like Bai Ling, if Bai was a bit more compact and someone took a belt-sander to her. How did I not make this connection before today?

On the painting itself, I'm still in the process of figuring out the exact placement of features, but all of my first drafts have those flaws. (As well as many finals!) I was tempted to put her other hand in the picture holding a pen, as if she's jotting down a note and looking around to see if anyone spots her, but that would be hard so fuck it. Instead I'm positioning her left arm to imply she's looking back as she walks out of a room to check her notes.



On to the other paintings! Dania has been driving me nuts. She's really close to coming together, but I am flailing about to get the final touch in that will cement it all.

There are two big changes here. First, I've given her a new dress. I decided to hit Google to see if I could find a dress similar to the one I had her wearing in my writing. One jumped out at me, as it was draping horribly on the mannequin and looking awkward. I am all about that! Of course, in adding that dress I was reminded why I chose to ignore the "ruffles" part of the dress description before. Blech.

The other change is the possible addition of the clipboard. On one hand, it activates more of the space in the painting. On the other hand, I'm not sure I could stylize a clipboard and make it look right. Thus, I panic and run away! Every time I work on Dania, so much white paint is lost!



The white paint thing is also causing me to screw up Moreh. When one has to mix colors, one cannot make enough for just a few brush strokes - yet I keep micromixing and running out with Moreh with my irrational need to ration. This means each new step needs me to mix the color just right or it looks terrible. Epic fail with that so far.

Her outfit is also causing problems. She appears too large on the canvas for me to show the table on which her hands are resting. This means my skill as a painter must somehow make the arm positions look correct. I'm fucked! Best I could do for now was to underpaint a block of green which seems in no way connected to either arm. Yay! The teacup is crap too, but that's because I haven't really focused on it yet.

See, this is why people love me. I'm so fucking positive about things!

Lucky number 13

13! 13! 13! Yes, I am re-watching Rome!

Yes, September is clearly the month of cursing, crying and bad omens.

Presenting, for the first time ever, Xander Upton: The 13th member of our class o' smarts.

His last name is no coincidence. Xander is not only emotionally distant, but he lives the farthest away as well! Even so, it's just not enough for him. Xander does not see his brain as an asset. By attending the Poppinstock Academy, he is kept away from social circle back home.

And don't you dare ask him to make friends with his fellow...NERDS! Xander is preppy snot through and through and wants as little to do with his classmates as possible. He caucuses with the outsider crew when push comes to shove, but that's it. Like the rest, he's an elitist...but not in the zesty way. Xander is a fiscal elitist - part of the country club set. My darling hellions believe in elitism through quality - a meritocracy! It's the same rudeness to others, but this way it's justified!

I've scribbled several Xanders over time, but this was the first I liked enough to scan. I think the preppy, shirt-tied-around-the-neck look won me over. Also, the slicked-back hair is a lot less forgiving to draw that my usual floppy or fluffy hairstyles. His normal look is not so wide-eyed; instead, his eyelids tend to sit at an unamused half mast. But that's not as cute!

Don't expect Xander to do anything but sit unhappily in the background for a long time. Even when he's discussed (which is rarely) he doesn't speak. He just glares. Then he leaves as soon as he possibly can.

The Diamond Bluffians

Life in Precocious Land is mostly sketching this week. I'll have to get back to churning out comics soon... but I'm scared! The next few strips I have to draw involve the two Diamond Bluffs characters, Dionne and Max - neither of which I'm that great at drawing yet. I'm still at that stage where it's not automatic for me. Some days I'm a dynamo at sketching my beloved evil kids; Some days I can't even make Bud (my most drawn character) look halfway decent.



Dionne is seriously fun to write for, but figuring out how many spots she has or how many ringlets are in her hair will drive me crazy. Even worse, she's a rare comics character that CHANGES HER CLOTHES! Clearly, I like to cause myself pain. Hey, my goal is to be *that* comic with both humor AND art. I'm going to aim HIGH... even if it means my strips might resemble Peter Gabriel videos.

Let me explain. Peter Gabriel is admirably progressive and artful in his music. In the late 80's/eary 90's, this meant using all those new digital effects...which had not been perfected. Instead of working comfortably within those limits, like the still-awesome Dire Straits video, "Money for Nothing", Peter aimed high and and did videos like "Kiss that Frog" and "Steam" - videos that then won praise for technical achievements, and now look hopelessly dated. "Money for Nothing" used new technology, but stayed within a comfort zone. The block figures of that video look exactly like block figures should look! The computer-generated Peter Gabriels in the other videos are a big, frightening dose of uncanny valley.

With Precocious, I'm trying to hit somewhere between "Money for Nothing" and "Steam." I want the ambition to be noticeable, so readers will know the visual potential the strip has, but it can't be forced. If I can't draw a complex scene correctly yet, it's better to find a way around it than draw something that is clearly awkward to all audiences. (I've already violated that rule a few times. Whoops.) I just want the strip to look as good as possible. I know I'll keep improving and my best possible look will just keep getting better. For now, I've got to roll with what I've got. Eventually my drawing style with tighten up and my questionable penmanship will improve.

Until then, however, I'm going to be stressing out every time Dionne shows up.