A small SCAD update!

I apologize for going silent everywhere. I owe so many people emails, and I swear I'll try to get to them all soon. Why have I gone silent? Simple. SCAD IS KICKING MY BUTT! I'm in Sequential Art boot camp - "intensive" courses meant to bring us outsider grads up to speed - and they aren't kidding around.

Everything I'm doing is stuff I've never really done before, and it's all vital to learn. It's good that I'm getting it, but bad that I'm not *getting* it as fast as I want to. Since this is basically an entire undergrad degree crammed into two months, one little hiccup means I start falling behind. I've let a lot of things fall away while I fight to get back on pace with things.

I meant to use this blog to post coursework and whatnot, to keep updates coming, but the workload has been so overwhelming I keep forgetting to share. Well, I'll share now!

The in-progress piece here - click it to see if full-sized - is project one for the drawing strategies class, and I've completely botched it. The concept is simple enough: An indoor composition with four or more figures. The subtext is where it gets you. This is the introduction piece; the one that defines you. It's mean to show understanding of interiors, lighting, black and white handling, composition, perspective and basic drawing skill. Yeah, I'm WAY out of practice with ALL OF THAT. I'm letting my worries get to me and it's been mental block city.

I've had multiple false starts, and now I'm at the point where I have to run with what I have. What do I have? A composition telling the story of me botching the project. We have cartoon Chrispys representing my various mental states hovering around a pathetically unfurnished room reacting to my failure to hit one of the ballpark with the first assignment. I'm going down with this one, but at least I'll do it with metahumor.

Oh well, this is why I'm boot camp, after all. I *don't* know everything yet, and this composition will give an accurate view into my state of development. I'm not pleased with starting out so low, but that's where I begin. It's only one project, and I'll have the rest of the quarter to right my wrongs.

Packing it in for the move

Let's make it official! No more bloggery until I'm in Savannah. (And maybe not until I've settled in a bit.)

I move Wednesday and I've fallen WAY behind in packing. Time to concede that I won't be getting any art done in the next few days. I have packed nearly all of my art supplies to remove any distraction I may have. It sucks and makes me feel bad, but the attempt at juggling only resulted in me doing a bad job across the board. Let's see if a refocused approach will get these tables cleared and bags packed. Three days left to pack and so much to do. Holy heck. It doesn't help that all I want to do right now is sleeeeeeeeeeep.

This whole moving thing is crazy. We're not even certain HOW my stuff is going to get to Savannah yet. I'm leaving that up to the family. They can figure it out! All I know is I'll pack as much key stuff as possible into my tiny, tiny Corolla. The rest will be transported by my brother, so I have to assume there's a high chance of it being consumed in a fiery wreck. I'm also not sure about what furniture is coming to me. As of now, the futon and bed are going to stay here so worthless bro has furniture and can deadbeat in style. This means new stuff for me! I think they want me to help pick it out, but I really don't care! As long as it's decent, I'm happy. Just show up at my door Thursday or Friday with a bed and futon. I don't want to worry about that right now! It's probably not the wisest approach to go the "surprise me!" method, but that's how I roll. The time for careful planning is over. PANIC PACKING IS IN!

Getting back on track

With *most* of the pressing SCAD stuff taken care of, it's time to resume being awesome. It seems like it's been a month since things were stable around here. Maybe it has? I'm not saying it's all stable now, but things are starting to fall into place and that's a very good thing.

I'm hardly out of the woods. This next month is devoted to dismantling my life and putting it into easily portable boxes that will be transferred to Savannah. It's a massive job, considering the clutter around here, but if I spread it out it will still allow time for productivity.

This is the week I learn to ride the bike again. I'm back to producing new strips, producing on the commissions and (hopefully) having enough material to get the blog running again. I've fallen a bit out of rhythm, so expect hiccups, but I hope to keep improving myself.

By the way, notice my awesome t-shirt? You should get one of your own!

I made you a sketch

Why, yes, it *is* filler to occupy you while I freak out over all this SCAD stuff. Why do you ask?

I do apologize for dropping away, but this is a big deal for me and I'm currently living in uncertain times. It's going to be a scrambled two weeks here while I get my accounts set up and find a place to live, so I can't promise to be any better until it's all taken care of.

What I'm saying is... I hope you guys really like strip #600, because it's all downhill from there Precocious-wise. I'll probably do another "break week" thing, with a knife-twist of a change to a MWF schedule. It may only be for the two weeks. It may be longer. It all depends on when things get settled and how productive I am during the chaos.

I hope to get time to focus on my painting commission next week. I think I figured out a trick to help me get the perspective working, but I have to get home (I've been in DC, which is always creative death) before I try it. If it goes well, it'll pop up on here!

I hope you guys forgive me for this. It's for a good cause! If you want something more to do, remember there is a fledgling Precocious forum out there, allowing you all to play with each other! Use it! Use it well! CELEBRATE ALL THE GOOD TIMES WE'VE HAD. (Pray for more!)

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!

Portfolio brainstorming

I apologize for clogging the internet with this, but this is the sum of my day! I had to come up with a portfolio of 20 strips to submit for my grad school application, and using the blog's preview function proved to be the best sorting option. As I have nothing else to show, here is what I came up with. These are the 20 strips *I* think sell myself the best. Why, yes, I *am* consumed with crippling self-doubt over my choices! How could I not be?

The first thing I was looking for was quality art. This is where I feel I am at a disadvantage, as the newspaper-style daily strip format tends to be rather simple in design. It's the nature of the beast. Any comic in which I had a chance to show off my artistic chops was automatically in. Next was, of course, humor. Again, my format gets in the way. I tell character driven stories. Many of my strongest strips are dependent on context. Those reviewing my portfolio will not have that context, so the strips I choose must be able to speak for themselves. That means no bake sale or school revolution strips, which is a shame. Those were funny STORIES, not funny standalone strips. The result is that I mined my gag-a-day theme weeks pretty heavily, with a lot of the early introduction strips as well. Finally, I threw in some Copper Roads for variety.

I'm proud of Precocious and I'm proud of these strips. They should be a nice taste, and clearly establish the kind of cartoonist I am. This is what I do, and I do it quite well. As long as there's still a place for classic-style strips in the world, then I should have a place in grad school!

Now comes to the agonizing task of arranging the strips so they flow nicely. Going in numerical order *almost* works, but I want to start with one of my grabber strips, like Rule #4 or Unrestrained Creativity. Ahh, it'll get done. It'd better! I have to submit this stuff tonight! (The numbers by the strips are for quick reference as I upload everything.)

98
107
111
131
139

143
145
162
169
185

191
197
199
200
288

309
312
463

Act casual...

Today is an inking day. Inking is so... permanent! I'm making THE comic! If I screw up, well, sucks for me. Oh yes, and tension does up the chances of screwing up. I gotta relax.

So I took a break! Gotta fulfill my blogging duties anyway. Today's sketch is of another buttoned-up character, Ms. Monster. She dresses frumpy and boring for her class - a "how not to be seen" experiment - all in a sick effort to keep her professional and private lives separate. It's kinda stupid, really. (I should note here that I've stopped the flimsy parallels to link the sketch with the day's theme and I'm on to just talking character.) Anyway, the point is that Bette hates having her worlds collide. (Tiffany seeing both Bette and Ms. Monster is an unfortunate exception.) For Bette to show up to class in short sleeves, something has to go horribly wrong.

So I course I made two Sundays' worth of strips about it! You'll see 'em come June. Consider yourself teased.

Lessons learned via aftermath

I decided to try another colored pencil sketch and the character of the day was the dreaded teacher, Bette Monster! Mwa ha ha!

This a rare casual shot. As we all know, seeing one's teacher out in the wild is a frightening experience. The whole authoritarian mystique is destroyed. Bette sometimes shows up at the Et house to hang out. The conflict has clearly left her psyche shattered.

In a class of genius psychopaths, Bette has learned the best she can do is let the kids go and try to nudge them in the right direction. Direct opposition results in war wounds. Using their personalities against them: Sadistically satisfying!

This was the first attempt at coloring, and only when I finished the drawing did I look up what collies actually look like. I have the coloring wrong! My god, if we can't trust walking, talking, clothed cartoon animals to have natural coloring... what can we believe in?

Just as I simplified my calico (Tiffany) and tabby (Sky), I'm going to have to let my inappropriate collie coloring to stand. That, or I can just not do my typical hatching in drawings to indicate shading in Bette. I guess we'll find out when I get to the comics.

Meet Ze Monsta

An alternate title could be "Hot for Teacher" - but why reference Van Halen over the lovely PJ Harvey?

This comely lass is Bette Monster, the educator for my little hellions.

Like the rest of my crew, she is a victim of my love for silly names. Her first name is a reference to the Precocious class' 13 kids first and last names all starting with a different letter of the alphabet. The surname Monster plays in wonderfully with the role of an authority figure. When you're literally under the command of a Monster, what are you to do? There's also the connotation that monsters are hideous beings, while Bette is clearly hot. (Cartoon collies might not be your thing, so trust me that she's the animal equivalent of a babe.)

The role of a comic teacher is key to adding a new dynamic to a strip. In Calvin and Hobbes and Ozy & Millie, the teacher is an exasperated educator at the mercy of the precocious characters - with only the power of grading and threat of detention to protect them. In Peanuts and Fox Trot, different instructors had different personalities. Fox Trot's professors were mostly of the sarcastic variety (with their own subtleties), but Bill Amend did make a choice once to shake things up. Precocious Jason Fox loved exasperating his teacher with his irritating genius, but when she retired his life was thrown into chaos. The new teacher, Miss O'Malley (I think) was young and on the ball. Jason at one point cried out in horror, "She's challenging me!" Miss O'Malley could get thrown off by Jason's excesses, of course, but I really liked the idea of someone in authority who could put him in his place. With Peanuts, while educators eventually warped into trombones vexed by Peppermint Patty, it should be noted that earlier instructors (around the 60's strips - which is as far as the published archives currently go) were very human. Charlie Brown, Linus and company watched them fall in love, get heartbroken, get married, crack up, learn life lessons, leave and return. I enjoy the idea of such rich characters existing purely off-panel. (See: every verbose post about my minor characters who won't appear for years or ever.) My own Monster is very much inspired by Miss O'Malley and those of the early Peanuts universe.

Bette has long since learned that the best she can do is let the kids choose their own directions and try to nudge them towards the right path. While she does remarkably well in keeping her class in a productive, controlled-chaos state, it's only natural that she can be exasperated at times. At least she's been teaching this group long enough to know how they tick; she knows when to step in and disarm them and when to step aside at let the inevitable explosions happen.

She's also single, fellas! At 29, Bette has the fear of old in her. With her private life, she alternates between convincing herself she's still a young soul and freaking out about becoming a full adult (getting married, owning a house, having kids) before it's too late. While I am not a furry pin-up girl, I *am* 28-going-on-ancient and hopelessly behind in such growing up things. Bette is my outlet for my own frustrations with aging.

Now, this usually doesn't come out in a classroom setting. When a teacher lets students humanize them or look at them as friends, the balance of authority becomes skewed in a way Ms. Monster can't afford, considering this batch of crazies! The way the human side of Bette emerges comes from her friendship with another couple that's going into maturity kicking and screaming: Gene and Sky Et. Despite them having a huge family, they are only 33 and 29, respectively. The Bette-Et combo allows each side to see each side of responsibility, and also provides the enabling element to run away from responsibility on occasion. (Alcohol *is* a factor.) If they aren't careful, Tiffany is going to have a *lot* of blackmail material...

Oh, Gene and Sky, you two are going to ensure my strip will never go into mainstream publication with your naughty antics, aren't you?

"Where do you see yourself in 10 years?"

1998 self: "Married and successful, living in a metropolitan area!"

2008 self: "Gee, I seem to be standing in the same place as my 1998 self. Uh oh."

Don't get so depressed, 2008 self, you're not in the *exact* same place. Shepherd moved on and grew, so you're standing in a new and improved art building! Huzzah!

Today is my last class at Shepherd. EVER. (I know I've said it before, but this time for reals!) This was a school I chose because my high school art teacher went there, someone I barely knew was going there and I just didn't care enough to put any effort into finding a school at the time. I went in thinking I'd knock out some general education requirements on the cheap and transfer to a *real* school after two years.

I tried that. It, uh, ruined my life and set me back at least four years. Whoopsie.

Eventually I pulled myself out of the void, slid into the studio art program, got my degree and even took some graduate classes. I went from a loser student to someone the professors respect. Turns out that tiny college packed a strong contemporary art program. I'm confident in my art as well as my ability to present my art, and I have some wonderful feisty professors to thank for it!

At least I've made the best of living in a rut. I've learned all Shepherd could teach me (transcript-wise) and the program I need for my MFA isn't offered there.

So now that I've knocked out nine credits of graduate studio courses on the cheap, it's time to transfer to a *real* grad school!

Let's hope this plan goes better than the last like it.