The Kickstarter and the Current story!

(Image unrelated to post. I thought I should include a picture, 

and I had an unused panel from the Food Fight story, so...)

My preference is to mix up the types of stories in Precocious for variety, so it's a little odd for four of the last five stories to be school-based. In the case of the current "morale-boosting" tale, it's a quirk of timing on two levels. We're a few weeks away from spring, when things (in theory) warm up enough for more outdoors-based storytelling - as well as marking the return of the kids' standard outfits! In sorting through upcoming stories, I found myself with a two-week opening before the warmer weather tales began, and my weather-independent stories were either too short or too long to fit.

But another bit of timing came into play. A little over six months after a stupid fall managed to mess me up, and trigger a wave of painful complications and bad flare-ups of prior medical issues, I've finally fought my way through to the last bit of the book 3's Kickstarter fulfillment.  After the packages I'm mailing tomorrow arrive, all that's left is one person (who has most of his order, and is waiting on a special reward), and the few who never filled out their backer surveys. (Since you didn't check the Kickstarter emails, maybe you'll see this post?) It's been a very frustrating time for all of us, and I'm so sorry this had to happen. I'd fought so hard to overcome the pain caused by two botched procedures on me to find stability and productivity again, only to be undone because of what I eventually learned was a defective bolt in my desk chair. ("All for the want of a horseshoe nail...")

One of the unlocked Kickstarter rewards was a bonus story for backers, and that one kept getting pushed back with everything else. Maybe there's a silver lining to that dark cloud, because I gained more time to play with the outline - and one day a second story emerged! The original story for Kickstarter backers was told over 14 comics, I had a 14-day gap in my schedule AND a new side-story, and during this 14-day gap was when the last of my overdue Kickstarter rewards would be sent out. SO I HAVE AN IDEA. Now, everyone can enjoy the bit of silliness I had planned for backers, and those who supported the book 3 preorder will be sent a PDF including this story, the bonus side story and some extra commentary upon completion of this story's run here. The side story will answer a question or two, and provide an alternate perspective on the great sixth grader incident.

I can take pride in knowing I didn't (and won't) miss a comic update, no matter how bad things got for me. The goal of a good daily comic is to always be there to make you smile, through happy days, grumpy days and dark moments. Precocious is something that you could take for granted, knowing I will always be there with a new treat for you ever day. (Thought I'd much prefer appreciation as opposed to a sense of entitlement - but such is the double-edge sword of reliability!) It hit me very hard that I couldn't be Captain Reliable for everything, and I had no choice to but to watch my deadlines come and go for non-Precocious work. While I've had a few commissions take too long, though all had legitimate reasons for those delays, this was a new experience for me. And it was awful. ESPECIALLY since I had the Kickstarter reward timing so perfectly planned out! Nothing makes the universe angrier than someone making plans, I guess.

I'm in no way out of the woods yet on any level. My health is still more bad than good, and it'll be interesting to see how that issue plays out with a potentially helpful procedure on the horizon. I also have lots of comic plans that I'm not willing to put on hold. I still plan to debut book four at Anthrocon this year, and the companion book will be produced as well, though for a later release.  One cruel twist on life is that your bill don't stop even when you can't work - in fact, they skyrocket with the addition of so many medical bills! (Don't get sick in America unless you're rich.) I will be looking into various fundraising options to help keep both me and the comic going, and I hope enough people appreciate what I do to give me the chance to keep fighting - but first, before any of that, I have a dwindling pile of outstanding orders to finish. Wish me luck!

The past and the future

The quarter has ended, and the plan was to get this blog going again once the first quarter at SCAD ended. Yeah, I had so many glorious plans. Work ahead! Copper Road! Do commissions! Study comics! TAKE OVER THE WORLD!

And then I blew out my finger.

I still have no idea why it happened. I'm a sequential artist! When *haven't* I drawn for hours and hours on end? Did I just draw wrong one day? All I know is that my finger ballooned up to three times its size around midterms, made me delirious with pain and ended up sending me to the emergency room. They took a x-ray, found nothing, decided to throw my finger in a splint, give me anti-inflammatory drugs and send me to a specialist. By the time I got my appointment with the specialist, the swelling had gone down but the finger remained sensitive. The specialist gave me steroids and said we'll wait and see. The finger got slightly better, but was still gimpy enough that I couldn't do my classwork. I'm falling further and further behind. I'm starting to panic. I go back to the specialist for an answer. His expert diagnosis: "I have no idea." God. Dammit.

It's been well over a month now, and my finger remains damaged for no good reason. I had to take an incomplete in all my classes, with the assumption my finger would clear up so I could do the work before the break was over. I've had to scale back Precocious' drawing over and over, and now it looks like I'm going on a guest strip hiatus until I heal. If I ever heal. How did these wonderful SCAD times end up going so wrong? Bah! Bah, I say!

So that's the horrible past - what's the horrible future? I... I'm not really sure.

I've shut my finger down completely, meaning no drawing for at least another week. I hope and pray that stretch of time will be enough for healing, as I have that scary pile of make-up work to do and time is running out! Once I resume activity, the obvious blog solution will be to post my make-up work here as I do it. You can finally see my attempts to be a FOR REALS sequential artist! The only downside is blogging here could cause lots of double-posting to Facebook if I also set up a "critique me and help me get better" work folder there. This could all be avoided if the blog-facebook posting thingy was at all reliable! Bah again! We'll see...

When I start drawing again, I also have a pile of Precocious work to do. I have a long-overdue painting to finish. I have some Precocious art to do. I have to design some prints for a donation drive. I also have to actually DO Precocious comics at some point. *cough* That stuff should mostly be bloggable.

So, yeah... The blog will resume activity soon - somehow! (Just not for another week or so, due to the shutdown finger thing.) I'll have such a massive pile of work to do for the next TWO YEARS that I should have no shortage of things to share. I just need to get in the habit of SHARING my art, not hiding it from the world because IT IS NEVER GOOD ENOUGH. This should be less of a conflict as I improve my skills. In theory. Crud, I hope so.

When blogging resumes, I'll put an announcement up on the Precocious site. Until then, live in a state of anxious limbo. LIKE ME!

(Damn you, finger!)

The slow process of packing

Behold: Minimal progress!

I am slowly packing up things for my move to Savannah, and it's driving me mad. THIS is why I haven't had much to show here as of late. The more I "clean" the bigger the mess becomes! I have to pull everything out first, before I can start putting things away. It's also been a sobering reminder that I AM A GODDAMN SLOB. So. Much. Trash.

I have a few weeks left to finish sorting through 15 years of memories and crap. Wheeeee.

Falling right back off the track

Well, crud. A week goes by and all I really accomplish is a snazzy pair of glasses. My first ones. I'm walking around in glasses, wearing a SCIENCE! shirt. I have truly crossed the nerd threshold now.

As for everything else, I am SUCKING! Comics are coming along at an ok pace, but that's it - and even that pace is going to fall off soon when I get serious about cleaning up the mess that is my living area. I'm WAY behind on commissions, and I apologize for that. I'll do my best to catch up THIS week, but we saw how my optimism worked last week! (Sorry again!)

Today the goal is to finish inking this week's comics. Tomorrow the goal is to get back to the grind with painting somehow. The next day? Probably making up for my failures from Monday and Tuesday. I know how I work!

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.

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!

The wrath of snowmageddon

I'm back in DC, and I forgot my darn card reader. iPhone, fix my problem!

Snowmageddon hit this place pretty hard. Aside from the nightmarish icicles, the snow took down SEVERAL trees here. Just like the last storm. Man, this house has a yard or fragile trees! I'm so tired of snow, and the clearing in DC is far worse than Winchester. That's just pathetic. It is my goal to convince grandma to order in. A lot. I don't want to hit the road again until I leave.

Word of warning: This blog might suffer while I'm here. The situation is not great, and that affects my productivity. For those who don't know, my Alzheimer's-and-cancer-ridden grandfather is on hospice care and he's been going downhill. There's no telling how long he'll last, and he did look better today. He's still eating, so that's a good sign.

To be honest, I'm toying with the idea of putting Precocious on a filler material break while I'm here - although I doubt I will. For one, producing filler material will probably take the same time as producing a new comic, so why do it? Also, we're right in the middle of a long storyline, so the timing sucks. Also also, I have yet to miss an update and I don't want to start now. I want a Bill Holbrookian streak of 15 years with no missed updates! (Of course, Bill Holbrook also gets PAID for what he does...)

I just wish I had come into here with more scripts. Once again, I get into a situation with only a loose idea of where I'm going for the next week or two. (Once I get by it, I have a *much* better idea of what I'm doing. Don't panic too much.) I'm hoping to knock out a few comics tomorrow and get my scripts in order, but family obligations might get in the way.

Basically, I *should* be able to keep things going normally - but don't be surprised if Sunday's strip suddenly changes to an Olympic sketch or something.

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!

Time out

As hinted at in the last post, I'm going to spend this week in DC focusing on spending time with my family. Precocious will keep going, but I am going to take a break from blogging and skip this week's Copper Road. The next Copper Road should be up next Monday and I'll start blogging again once I have enough free time to work on something to post!

For those not in the know: My grandmother's heart just gave her a hospital trip. My grandfather has advanced Alzheimer's and requires full care, most of which has been handled by my grandmother. My mother is here to help for a few days. My brother gets back tomorrow. On Thursday, my aunt and her partner are coming to visit. There's going to be no free time! I'll barely be able to keep up with the comic. (Tonight and tomorrow are for working ahead!)

Family always comes first.

Do not want!

It was a good day. It was TERRIBLE night. I debated not blogging at all, but I'll just say things are not fun right now. I hope good news comes tomorrow.

I'm still trying to be productive, though. I need to get myself ahead. Living deadline to deadline is not healthy for me or anyone around me.

Sobriety is such a problem

As you may know, I have promised the awesome Briana for Rune Master a piece of fan art for her coming hiatus. It's the least I could do after she, y'know, built my new PHP site!

I vowed to make an informed piece of fan art, so it was archive conquering time! She's another mad producer, which means I had 665 strips to get through to formulate and produce my art... by August 1. For those of you paying attention, August 1 is in two and a half hours. IT TOOK A WHILE TO GET THROUGH THE ARCHIVES, OK!

Going though, I thought I had a good idea of what to do for her. For the first 2/3 of the story the main character, Diyero, is a drunken fool. All my ideas went after the easy funny. (He casts magic with runes... is there a rune combo that makes a glass of booze keep refilling itself?) Then, today, I went in to finish the archives.

*insert record scratch here*

He quit drinking! It's a redemption arc! Hey, good for him, BAD FOR MY IDEAS! This is why I wanted to have read everything, though - because RM is such an epic that it could go in any direction.

Now I have to figure out a new direction. Typical character portrait? A more clever gag? What if I draw her characters in *my* style, such as the pic above? Too self-absorbed? I have until midnight to get this done. I joked with Briana that it might take me until midnight Hawaii time to get it done... and boy, that might be right.

Dear Plastic

My quest for five plastic plant paintings continues. Mill entries have to be done by Friday, so there's no time for dilly dallying! Rather than drive myself nuts trying to finish the fern painting, I chose to push forward with new attempts whenever I hit a mental road block.



As I remembered to bring a camera to DC this time, I can show process! This arrangement was located inside a larger ceramic vase. I had only ever seen the ivy stuff on top! Turns out, it's a perfect arrangement for painting. The above image is what was on the campus when I hit the first "what's next?" panic last night.



This is where the leafy painting currently stands. I sharpened things up and played with outlines, as is my way. The current mental block is due to indecision over what color to use for the background. Figuring out how to treat the vase is also a concern. Eh, fuck it.



On impulse I grabbed some plastic violets and arranged them. On further impulse, I barely paid attention to the placement of flower and leaf. On excessive impulse, I doodled with paint. WILL THIS CRAZED EXPERIMENT SUCCEED? Stay tuned!

This is what I'm *supposed* to do as an artist

Story time!

Yesterday I had a shocking experience. Having ordered lots of strip templates fairly recently, I was confident in my abundance. Then I counted the remaining number of templates and the amount of strips scripted and ready to draw. Oh snap! See, the theory is that I will work on my scripted strips, but I will *also* draw any random idea I get. My strip needs more one-off strips with quirky humor, and I figure it'll come naturally as long as I'm receptive. If I don't have enough supplies to cover more than a few random strips, Mr. Conservation steps and in makes life sad.

This problem needed to be fixed. TO THE INTERNET! I normally go to Dick Blick for resupplies, as the 14-sheet pads are cheapest there, but I felt thrifty and tried to search the web. This is an absolute pain, as my templates are one item in an ever-variable list of Canson products. Frustration grew as I reached a site and looked at an improbably price. "What kind of sale is this? The price is MORE than the list price and - wait, did that say 50?" IT COMES IN PADS OF 50? Why was I not told of this sooner? I now have 200 templates coming my way at the cost of about 25 cents per sheet, shipping price included. There was an even better deal with the 100 pack (*drool*) but it appears to be theoretical as all sites have it as sold out. It'll be a while before I run out now!

(here is where the story splits into different timelines. As is my nature, I am putting the relevant story second. )

1) ...assuming the pads get here. Today I check my email to see the chaos Project Wonderful has wrought (it's rather amusing to see cheapo bids fluxuate wildly) and I see a note from Art Supply Warehouse titled "Backorder." Ruh roh. I open to see the expected, "we're sorry and we'll get it to you soon" stuff. Then it lists the missing item that is holding my order back. The catalog. They won't ship my pads until they can dump a catalog on me. I wrote them back, saying (and this is as direct a quote as I can remember), "See, there's this thing called the internet. I can review your catalog and, um, place orders there." I have yet to get a reply.

2) ...of course, Mr. Thrifty had to come out for a fight first. The site kept asking if I had a coupon code, and that make me thing, "you know, I DESERVE to have a coupon code!" So I searched for one. All I found had expired, but the journey was not without its reward. The blog that cataloged coupons *also* lists various art promotions. The main one on the page was sponsored by Prismacolor.

For those not in the know, I consider myself a drawer more than anything. I have kicked some serious ass in the past with my Prismacolor pencils and pastels. This contest is right up my alley! The only problem is that the art has to have been completed in the past six months. What have I done in the past six months? DAMMIT!

What you see here is me trying to rekindle my former glory with the pencil. For this contest, I'll have to do something more realistic, but and excercise in an excercise! Enjoy.

Life is but a dream

Ahh, but there are several types of dreams! One, always a favorite, is the stress dream in which YOU CAN'T WIN! No matter what you do, your brain changes the rules to screw you over. One of my most common involves me driving in a highway and taking the wrong exit, only to be stuck in an series of increasingly difficult roads that always lead me further and further away from the path I desire. The common ending for these has me carrying my car on my back as I gingerly walk across a shaky rope bridge over a chasm. One I had recently involved a Batman-obsessed gremlin thing that was a pushover. I beat it up and outsmarted it time and again, but it was always right around the corner to attack again. The dream ended when I thought I had it trapped in my grandparents' house (Mom's side) only to realize too late that they had installed a pet door. With a, "well, that's the end of me," sigh, I woke up. Another fun version ends with thousands of airplanes falling from the sky until one finally hits me.

The above sketch is a fairly good indicator of the past 24 hours. On one side, we have the quiet and reserved Yvette Nutley. On the other, a tempting and shiny meat cleaver. A truer emotional self-portrait has never been done!

Let's recap the fun!

-After sleeping through my alarm and moving like a drunk snail all morning, I arrive at my grandparents' house (mom's side) a few hours late. This is not a problem for me, since they didn't believe I was coming. Such faith they have in me! I try to explain webcomics to them, then explain over and over why the one painting they like of mine wasn't on my website. It's my poinsettia painting that has been sitting at my grandparents' house (dad's side) for the past month.

- Grandma (mom's side), with whom I am supposed to be spending quality as she has terminal cancer and all, says she is tired and goes back to read and watch TV. She feels perfectly healthy, so she's in no rush to do that creepy family time stuff. Most of my interaction with her was checking her math while she balanced her checkbook (she got it right) and turning down the beer she offered. Most of my time was spent chatting with my aunt (mom's side) as we "watched" a basketball game.

- Then I got a call. My grandmother (dad's side) wanted to know where I was. Now, I had told my aunt (dad's side) that I wouldn't arrive until after 9pm. I was told by my mother that grandma (dad's side) said it was perfectly fine if I showed up late at night. When I showed up at my grandparents' house (dad's side) at 9:30, I found out neither relative had told HER when to expect me. I was in trouble.

- The reason I didn't spend the night at my grandparents' house (mom's side) is because I have daily internet obligations! I need five minutes of internet time to upload the day's Precocious strip, and the only wifi I can steal is around my grandparents' house (dad's side).

- When I arrived at the grandparents' (dad's side) house I was greeting with the strange image of my grandmother (you know by now) eating cold Chef Boy-Ar-Dee from a can. Things also smelled funny, but at the time I chalked it up to the can (chef's side). After taking great care to keep their pipes from freezing during the recent cold weather, the pipes chose to rust themselves into oblivion instead. The kitchen was out of commission, the heat was out and the plumbers had a bit of trial and error before finding the problem.

- Thinking the leaky pipe was in one place (the wrong side) they knocked some holes in the downstairs ceiling. Though that hole came the distinct smell of dead mouse. Oh great. That explains it. (It's mostly dissipated by now, but that was not fun coming into the fresh kill zone.)

- I was tired from a day in which nothing had gone right. Grandma (still dad's side) was the same. We talked ourselves into a stupor and then adjourned for the night. It was time to do my update.

- THE INTERNET IS DEAD! I tried every fix I could, even though Windows (Satan's side) told me again and again that the problem wasn't on my end. The person from which I was stealing wifi was currently without internet - and I was up shit's creek until that person realized there was a problem.

- As midnight grew closer, I became increasingly distressed. I had it all planned out! I abandoned my grandparents (mom's side) just so I could be covered for the update! I couldn't do any other work because I was checking the connection every 10 minutes until 3am or so. I missed my update time and I hated myself for it.

- Feeling helpless, I decided to try sketching. Guess what I had forgotten to bring! If you guessed MY DAMN PENCIL, you know me too well. Fortunately, I had brought lead refills, so my no-copy red pencil was sacrificed to the alter of "I can't scan red!" That is one problem solved, everything else in the world still wrong.

- I could not sleep. Not only was my mind still panicking and waking me over and over to check the connection, but it was FREAKIN' COLD! I had just escaped a house where I was forced to run the space heater all day to keep feeling in my hands, and now busted heat put me in the same position.

- I end up sleeping through TWO alarms and oversleeping an hour. I am not remotely rested and I feel sick because of it. Oh well, at least this place has the best shower in the world! See, at home something has gone wrong. At the 10 minute mark, the hot water is gone. This had not been a problem before. Showers (home side) had been reduced to trying to ration hot water long enough to clean AND relax me. (If unrationed, it would never reach 10 minutes.) This means showers had become stressful and ALWAYS ended in cold frustration and disappointment. GUESS WHAT! Two minutes into this shower (grandparents dad's side) I had shut off the cold completely and was taking all hot I could. I finally had to bail, cold and miserable.

By now I am starting to wonder if I have died and ended up in Purgatory. No matter where I go, the same problems follow me. I can't get warm. When I do momentarily reach warmth, overheating immediately follows and I have to freeze again. No matter how long I sleep, I cannot get any rest. This has been going on for days. No matter what I do, I cannot get on the internet. I can't properly taste food. Feelings in general have become confusing. Seriously, since when have I been so succeptible to cold? It's getting worse every day and I don't know why! It's a minor disaster wherever I turn, and I am starting to suspect nothing will ever go right again. Around the 10th time I managed to connect to a wireless network from the nauseating IHOP only to have it fail to connect to the internet, I was certain I was a ghost. It's not just recent events, you see, but the past two months have been unrelenting in thrusting negativity on me. Is this like the Sixth Sense scene where I am lamenting how I am ignored by people I thought were friends, only to realize they moved on because I was, yanno, dead? Is this why I can not sleep for a day, sleep an entire day, quit eating for a while, eat like a pig another time, work hard, do nothing and generally turn my life into one crazy variable experience.... and yet the result is always the same. I feel the same no matter what I do. I weight the same no matter what I eat. This is not something mortals do. I am dead. I've been dead for a while. I'm dead and the afterlife SERIOUSLY SUCKS! Fuck me.

And then we rush home from the IHOP (after two hours of awkward and horrible-tasting misery) because we have doctors appointments. We don't stop by the library (which offers free wifi) because of this. Aha! Once again the solution is twisted away from me! This is a dream or death! I am certain!

Once home, I find the wifi person finally remembered to plug his modem back in. I do my comic update 14 hours late. I have no email, no comments, probably no chance in readership... and when I call my grandparents (mom's side) with an offer to come visit, they tell me not to bother since they didn't expect me to come over anyway. Even though we had all discussed it the day before.

No matter what happens, it all stays the same. WHY DOES THE SAME HAVE TO SUCK SO MUCH!?

This Bud's for you!

What? It's Saturday night. Give me a break! I'm not even clever enough to do a "Aww, the Bud Lite!" in-joke thing, as that would require drawing a lamp. (Next Saturday?)

Death to the poofy dress!

Yet another roadblock in comic creation has been overcome: The strips featuring Dionne's ridiculous dress have been completed!

While I'm glad to be done with it, I do regret my failure at dress design. In reality, young pageant girls dress revoltingly slutty. (Note to feds: My research only went as far as a Little Miss Sunshine vidcap. I chose the the least-frightening dress, added ruffles and closed my browser feeling violated.) I tried to go for the ridiculousness of the costumes while filtering out the creepy factor - hence the tutu thingy. I probably should have added more bows, but they would conflict with the spots and ruffles and spots and curls and sucky drawing.

That brings the completed strip count to 22 - only 40 strips and a few months behind now! That's... fairly horrible, considering the strip was supposed to have launched its regular updates on Monday. I'm almost tempted to finish building the site to do the regular updating and just fill in the summer stories as they get done. Oh, ambition, you are such folly in the hands of an idiot! I have stories set in July (Gender Wars), August (Meet the Parents), September (Back to School, Birthday Parties) and October/November (Class Elections). At one point I actually thought I'd be *ahead* of schedule. What a moron I was. Of course, this "start now, work on the backlog" plan isn't going to happen, as I need to actually SCRIPT the opening strips first! I have 4 scripted, but the arc is likely 8-10 strips long. Oy.

Oh well, all I can do is keep pressing on with the original plan. Max's introduction is up next, which consists of several monologues. Easy on the drawing, but hell on someone who seriously sucks at lettering.

Concern

It's been a disastrous July/August for me, resulting in total physical breakdown these past few weeks. These are indeed times for concern.

But I'm starting to pull out of the funk - physically, at least. What remains are the mental scars that must be overcome. Those don't go away nearly as fast, but all I can do is hope I break out soon. The urge to create is starting to buzz inside me again... can productivity be far behind?

Considering my track record with optimism, I'm not making any promises until I have real results.

It's like an unfinished symphony...

...but instead of brilliance I have infused my work with halfassitute.



"Scandal" is diamond in this rough. I consider it one of the best paintings I've done. The colors are great, the composition is almost there (like everything in this post, it's only finished enough to pass the Mill admissions test) and the face is exactly what I wanted. Yay me!



Hey, remember the Queen of Clubs? (Scroll down a couple posts if you don't.) Well, fuck her. I tried and I tried to make her work, but instead of playing card wardrobe I ended up with pure Chrispy doodling. You know what? The doodling was *way* better than that awkward face. Out goes the temptress and in come the mecha-swirls! (Bad name for a band: The Mecha Swirls.) You know, if you didn't know the failure that preceded it, this would be a decently snazzy abstract work. But I reminded you. And told you scroll down and see the initial abomination. You know its shameful past. Fuck.

The tile is now "All Roads Lead to Rome" - chosen in hopes it could ascribe some meaning to a viewer. Deep, I know.



Expecting "Risk Key" - my 70's temptress? SO WAS I! What happened was a pitfall all artists know too well: The sketch was too good. I got just what I wanted in my blue boozer, so adding anything just make it look worse. With no idea where to go, I bailed after marring it only slightly. It's no where near refined enough to ever pass for finished, but it will take a major effort to work it out and keep the vibe. Fear of failure level at maximum!

So now I was down two temptresses. It was time to make more! At midnight! With the application due the next day! After starting on a Generic Medieval Babe, I was not thrilled; it seemed far too bland and felt like a unicorn - surrounded by fairies - was going to gallop into frame any minute. In other words, it resembled my target idea so much that any satire I wanted became sincerity. Onto the junk heap it went.

Its replacement... has the same problem. This piece - "Who Knows You Best?" - is also meant to capture a romanticized image. This time it's the poor servant girl. She's always there to tend to your needs. She doesn't have expensive clothing or accessories, so she makes due with what she has. Her face is round and sweet. Her eyes are sincere. She doesn't have the ruby lips of a starlet, but does it even matter? She stands by obediently, waiting to attend to your wishes. (Any wish? Hmmm...)

But is it too sincere? The static post was meant to evoke the stiff stance of servant waiting for action, but it makes for a non-dynamic composition. The flat expression is meant to show dutiful kindness without love. The view of her entering from the curtains is meant to evoke both a breech of privacy and an intimate knowledge of the charge's needs. It's a reverse Stockholm Syndrome: Her job is to be the perfect woman for you; how can one not entertain the thought? It's a nice sentiment, but is it art?

Granted, the work is obviously unfinished. There simply wasn't time to add depth to the colors and tweak the face to my liking. It reached a point where, instead of adding more paint to the palette, I just added water and smeared color around until it (mostly) filled the lines.

It should also be noted that this work, like the rest of my temptresses,was brought about by a great film. This time it was Far From Heaven, a movie that mimics the classic Douglas Sirk films in style. If you haven't seen a Sirk film - and I haven't - the style is of a wholesome 50's environment with several complex underlying issues. Visually, all colors in the film are oversaturated and bright. Suddenly the painting makes a lot more sense, eh?



Out of time and with "Risk Key" out of the picture, I was one painting shy and had to do something quick. With The Fountain - my go-to movie for painterly inspiration - I attacked Generic Medieval Babe and drowned her in broad strokes of green. The inspiration for this painting came from the "Suburban Sprawl" sketch a few posts down. Once it became clear that I can't work a paintbrush enough to do detail work, the initial drawing was toss out and pure Chrispy doodling took over. Once again, The Fountain turned my work into something about nature and plants. (It's that whole Tree of Life thing.) What is nature's version of suburban sprawl? I went with the old growth forest tapering off to fresher, greener thickets. And so "Old Growth" was the last-minute addition to my parade of failure. Yes, it is also noticeably unfinished. Whee!



Notice how I kept saying I needed one more painting? Actually, I needed two - but I quickly realized that was just not going to happen, so I went with my one remaining hot chick painting not on display anywhere. Oh, Cheerleader 3, your love of Swedish football pads my roster.

Kiss them for me, if I am delayed

So...deadlines? What's the deal with those?

I've been treading the fine line between procrastination, idiocy, irresponsibility, mentally deranged and hyper-dumbassery for quite some time now. (It's a very complex line.) Flirting with danger is fun and all - but it's just flirting. I'm apparently looking for a hot, naked sweaty affair with danger as I keep taunting deadlines like a super happy fun ball.

So it's looking like Precocious will not make it's end of July deadline for publication. That sucks, but confidence remains high. Early August is still attainable. The problem is all those *other* deadlines I let sneak up on me... and then let gnaw on my foot... and then let saw off my leg... and then let set me on fire...

Now that I have been engulfed in a fire that burns but does not consume, with some festive dismemberment thrown in, it's time to start thinking about dealing with these problems. I may not be able to bring my allegorical leg back, but dousing the flames is bound to be an improvement to my situation.

Is it time to embrace Zen? Is it time to transform into a person who can structure time well? Is it time to become someone who can just *do* work at a moment's notice? Sure, but me exploding as I type this post is more likely to happen.

My personality is a cosmic joke and we all know it. Whatevs. I'd rather be nutty than boring, so life with chaos isn't necessarily bad. I know that what makes my life a mess is also what makes me interesting. Unfortunately, just knowing (glowing?) isn't enough. Sure, most of my problems are textbook ADHD consequences. I can name that beast, but it's not Rumpelstiltskin. There's not even a sympathy card to play, as ADHD is nearly indistinguishable from Whiny Prick Syndrome - especially IF I BLOG ABOUT IT!

Rationally, I shouldn't have a problem. I am fully capable of meeting my goals. There's just the problem of my head being like an busy airport with no control tower - and all the pilots are drunk. If planes aren't smacking into each other in the sky before they get a chance to try landing, they're colliding as several rush to the same landing strip. The tiny personal planes off to the side can come and go as they please, since they're smaller and less numerous. Those planes can generally move around each other and land quickly, but the cargo is rarely vital. Still, it's very easy to focus on the tiny planes. They may be irrelevant, but at least *something* gets accomplished. Standing at the end of a landing strip with nothing but a pile of crashed jumbo jets can be quite discouraging.

Over time I've learned to manage those simile jets far better, but full mastery is the unobtainable goal. If I let the airport get too chaotic, no amount of control can stop the impending disaster. Maybe it's better to just let the crashing happen and guide in whatever jets remain at the end. If it's too late, it's not worth the stress. Accept it, let the jet crash (or, to mix imagery, let the leg be cut off) and order a new shipment of cargo. Maybe this one will arrive when the airport is less congested.

Holy fuck, that's depressing. All I wanted to do was post some more sketches, but I'm at work so I decided to see if I could write something interesting instead. And now I've blogged all over myself... it's disgusting.