It remains whim time!

Today was recovery from the Super Bowl day, so not much bonus, bloggable progress was to be made - until I returned to whimsy and painted some more FOR THE PEOPLE! It may be chaotic. It may not be going anywhere good. It might accidentally trigger the downfall of humanity. WHO CARES! It's bloggable progress, and it beats having to show you a shot of my desk as I work on this week's Precocious and Copper Road strips. (I am indeed doing that today.)

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...

Run from responsibility!

Ha! I will be responsible and make my dodging into a blog post! Today is another comic work day, followed by mild socializing, so any extra bloggability is out. Thus, I select a fun sketch from the sketchbook and GO WITH IT! Wheeeeeee!

So much for painting

This trip was supposed to be all about painting. Well, screw that. Let's do everything else!

My comic buffer only went until Saturday, which was fine for my initial plans of coming home, uh, tonight. Obviously, that's not happening. Instead, I'll be heading home on Sunday, which means I have to do strips here in DC. Unfortunately, DC is not the best place to make strips, so they take a bit longer to produce. Thus, painting time goes bye bye.

This was a productive evening, though! (You know it's a productive day when I have no extra sketches to show you in the daily blog.) Aside from sketching out enough strips to justify a mass inking, I also had a breakthrough with the scripting of the next storyline!

This current arc isn't getting much love, so plans to extend it have been scrapped. (I think it'll read a lot better in the archive, when you can burn through them all at once.) Baseball fun ends on the 10th, and then we launch into a special story I whipped up FOR YOU FANS! You guys reminded me that I've been neglectful about some stuff, so this is me coming back to remind you why you read Precocious in the first place.

This next story will run for four weeks, and I'm quite proud of what I have so far. 21 of the 24 scrips are done, and I know what I need to cover with the last three. Yay inspiration!

While I'm talking about the future, I'm hoping to get a bit more varied in presentation after this, going gag-a-day for a week or two between stories. I have some loose plans for the next few months, but there's lots of open space for me to drop the storytelling and go wild!

And somewhere along the line I'm doing some painting. I have commissions, darn it!

Attention whoring is a go!

Much to my surprise, I was asked to do an interview for the Webcomic Reviews and Interviews podcast. (Someone must be desperate!) My interview will happen next Monday, the 27th, at 8pm. Tune in? Can you tune in? I have never gotten into this whole podcast thing, so this will be new and delightfully awkward!

(I hope I can swear!)

Because I care for you

Today was mostly working on the comic. (Actually, it was mostly relaxing, but that doesn't sound as dynamic!) But I need something to share, so I went and fixed the remaining unfinished tiny painting. It is now time TO MAKE MORE!

Is it bedtime yet?

I'm back from DC and totally not in the mood to be all artisty and stuff. Productivity resumes TOMORROW.

But isn't bedtime Autumn cute?

Just one of those days

Yes, this is a cursed day. So far everything I've touched has crumbled and failed on me. Can't draw a strip to save my life. Can't sketch to save my life. Can't write (in any form) to save my life. Can't really paint to save my life either, but here we go anyway! This one is going in a different direction than intended, but I think it can be pulled off in the end. I worked on two other mini canvasses today, but one was raw and one isn't changed enough to merit scanning.

Working to avoid working

Today was supposed to be the day I started scanning in June's completed strips, or at least inking some more June strips. Yeah, that's tedious, so screw that. LET'S BE CREATIVE!

The upside is that I got these two bite-sized paintings completed. The one on the left makes me happy. The one on the right leaves me merely content.

Strictly Business

Today's sketch is of our two Precocious parents in who work in the soulless business environment. Well, the ones who make it funny. Jacob's dad might qualify as he's a patent attorney, but he's so *sincere* - Sincerity isn't funny!

Gene Et and Sydney Oven both give away their secret hobbies here, with the World of Warcraft wastebasket (no, I didn't bother looking up the logo for reference) and Pokeball decal. I love their looks, as if they know they'll be outed as big children at any second!

I really botched the original sketch, but decided I'd run with it. It's the spirit of business! "Fuck it; let's look busy!" It gave me an excuse to mess around in Photoshop and fix all the major proportion errors. I did a great fix job, so that makes the effort worthwhile.

My mind's on business because comic promotion warps the brain hard. I'm becoming accustomed to fighting and clawing for any attention. If I sit back and relax, down go the stats! Now, I don't really mind, since overall Precocious is doing great, but the mindset remains. Gotta be aggressive to move up, because the internet is a vast ocean of indifference, insanity and unrestrained malice. You have to be bold to get attention of the feed worthwhile folks who somehow ended up online, and it's ever more difficult with comics because you never can be sure who makes up your audience. It's never one set group, but a cross-section. Try doing targetted advertising for that! Gah!

That fight is still fun, though. It's not life and death, and I enjoy a challenge where the outcome is measure by how greatly I succeed. A fight without a loser is a wonderful luxury, and I'm glad to have this as my fun obsession.

With all the responsibility in real life, my fantasies turn to the ultimate luxury of being passive and having life come to me. I'm so used to scrambling for any attention that unsolicited niceness is a joyful shock. Being invited over to dinner on by birthday by Dana; finding an unsolicited endorsement of Precocious at the Belfry; learning that people were voting for my site every day - these are the things I cherish right now. It's fun to be selfish sometimes.

I'll be the grown-up. I'll be productive. I'll earn my spot in humanity. It's about time I face some adversity in otherwise blessed life. Still, I'm not going through life without a metaphorical pokeball decal on my metaphorical briefcase! That's how I do metaphorical business!

Edit: Despite the perfect timing of the pokeball metaphor, I had no idea the new Pokemon game was released today when I made the post. Looks like the universe is either being kind or fucking with me. I'm not buying it quite yet, but it sure looks shiny.

A banner day

So I've decided to aim for quantity over quality, it seems. I know there's a perfect Precocious banner out there, but I'm not sure it can be done using only existing strips. (Planned: A color Sunday with all secondary characters standing around looking dynamic. Humor optional.) Only five of the above banners are new, but I threw 'em all in to make an impressive wall. Deal.

Today was meant to be a Project Wonderful ad blitz, but that seemed to end quickly when everyone else tried one too. Yay for the Monday push! Seriously, Precocious needs one more PW bidder to make bidding competitive. I'd like to one day be able to gain enough from ads to balance out what I'm spending. (And there's a noticeable drop when I stop spending. Gah! Can't we just fast forward to a time when I have a super-solid base of readers?) Anyway, with my ads being outbid and me not willing to spend any more, the solution my brain came up with was to create more ads. Yeah!

I hope I have some interesting sketch stuff to show off later today, but I fear this day will be ALL BUSINESS! Fight! Color! Draw! Win! Grrrrrrr...

Death by a thousand colors

Ok, so that may be a *slight* exaggeration...

Here is swatch collection 2.0 - featuring more character color and less random crap. (Sorry, dirt, I don't care if you are colored inconsistently.) This swatch is still big on the corner cutting, unfortunately. I'm relying on memory to know which colors are shared between characters instead of firmly defining them on character sheets. SHIT! I need to make character sheets! That's even MORE work! *sob*

Today has been amazing. I've done almost nothing that can be seen on the website, yet I'm still very tired. I experimented with the simplest comment system out there and still screwed it up, attempted internet socialization, worked on supporting materials and let the hours drift away. I'm slugging away at the thousand "things I should do" and *maybe* connecting weakly on a few. Just to make me feel better, my reader has also dropped off dramatically, as have bids on my ads. MY WORLD IS IN DECLINE! ABANDON SHIP!

Oh, wait, that drop was just the natural ebb and flow of web traffic. I got a huge peak in traffic from one generous site, which boosted everything, and now that wave has crashed. We're returning to the normal swells. As long as I have more readers after the wave than I did before, life remains good. I haven't even factored in how traffic varies by day of the week yet. (Mostly because I'm not yet sure what days do what.) Each feature I add should be a positive. Each strip I add should bring more people to the site. Becoming a successful cartoonist is a process that takes years, so I won't see many payouts from my current effort until I start plotting progress in the long term.

BUT I CAN STILL COMPLAIN NOW! Goddammit, I hate "creating" while sitting still! I normally bounce around! I pace! I move! What I've been doing recently has me sitting at the computer all damn day... and I'm not even geeking out! I haven't read any comics aside from my own in over a week! I haven't checked the news! All I do is code and color, with happy vacations to sit still again and ink. Ahh, but I have started to build up a buffer of strips again. Things are progressing as they should. It hurts, but it's a good kind of hurt.

That being said, if anyone wants to be my colorist out of pure love for me, expecting no payment and minimal credit, SIGN UP NOW!

In a row?

Yes, I am recycling a joke I made on Facebook. Yes, this reeks of an "It's Saturday; deal with it," post. But, well, it's *almost* Saturday. Deal with it.

Pictured here are 33 of the 37 Precocious strips making up the next arc. (There are two #72 strips, as I haven't decided which one to go with yet.) They have to be inked and colored, with the first one needing to be done for Monday's update. Oh, so much work. The plan is to ink until Saturday night, then start coloring what I have to get one done by midnight.

Really, I just wanted to get something up for today. The *actual* art post is probably coming after midnight. I intend to hammer out one painting tonight before/after/during inking. Painting as a break beats sitting around in a daze with an aching hand, right?

APAT-

"You know, all I have to do is paint enough so that the paintings LOOK finished. The Mill people will never notice!"

And so the downward spiral began.



There's a background on the painting now. FINISHED ENOUGH! "But, Chrispy, you never went back and finished the vase, doesn't that--" I SAID I'M FINISHED, DAMMIT!

One bonus of ceasing to give a fuck: I can paint on my own terms!



This gigantic canvas (48" x 30") is my Chrispmas gift to Dana. (Fuck that mirror, I WANT THE WALL SPACE!) This has actually been coming along nicely. Man, I hope this still fits the color scheme of the room. It may be too warm in tone. It also may be too large to fit in my Corolla for transport. It's the thought that counts?

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!

Things that go bump in the night.

No, grills that work in a similar fashion to George Foreman's famous cooker do not go bump in the night - as far as I know. I have a potentially interesting story to tell and this was the only sketch done tonight. George Foreman probably goes bump in the night, though. Maybe he's mad that I didn't choose to use his grill as my source, but rather a grill with the caption reading something like, "George Foreman's grill can't compete!"

As foretold, I am back to work on sketching new strips. Tonight's haul ended up being six strips sketched and ready for inking. Not bad for getting back to the grind. As always, I needed media distraction to get my brain to focus. Neko Case on iTunes is far too bewitching, leading the mind to wander into fantasy. Had to put in some basketball to kill the wandering mind, then some Wire DVDs to get me motivated on strip-making.

I finished two DVDs, which puts on disc two of season 5. I'm too close to the end! I can't wait one more day for the next back to DVDs to come in! I'm not going to be up and running until after the mail comes tomorrow! There's only one solution: Take my Netflix packages to the mailbox at 4am!

I suppose the trek is a bit creepy late at night. The driveway is long, the lighting is non-existent and wild creatures have been known to stroll through the neighborhood. Also, I was just watching a bunch of people get stalked and shot for about six hours. Still, the weather was pleasant the spirits were high!

That's when the horror movie began.

Like a good future-axe-holster, my mind started to wander to my grandparents. Dying sucks in its own right, but it's brutal on spouses. I really do worry that the surviving grandparent might just give up, as is common with long-married elderly couples. So I asked myself, "once my obligations are over, will I just give up on living?" Habitually, I did a pocket check for balance. No cell phone or keys, of course. I was defenseless!

I get out to the mailbox and turn around to send my Netflix packages on their way.

*bhuh* *bhuh* *bhuh*

The FUCK was that!? I turn aroumd and look out, trying to see the source of the sound - or at least trying to see if any notable blob is scrambing across the neighbor's yard in my direction.

*bhuh* *bhuh* *bhuh*

It sounds like it's coming from the treeline in the distance. It's not a very recognizable sound...

*bhuh* *bhuh* *bhuh*

Wait, I have it! It sounds exactly like the "axe murderer closing in on a victim" sound effect you hear in movies. I am totally not making any of this up. Some douchebag is SCORING my death with cliches!

*bhuh* *bhuh* *bhuh*

I listen to it for a few more repititions. Doesn't sound like it's getting closer. My guess is a heat pump trying to figure out what the hell it's doing at the always temperature-fuckly 4am. So I turn my back to the sound and walk down the driveway.

*bhuh* *bhuh* *bhuh*

Did it just get louder?

*bhuh* *bhuh* *bhuh*

Maybe not. I keep walking.

*bhuh* *bhuh* *bhuh*

Maybe that's a sound an old dog who smoked three packs a day would sound like...

*bhuh* *bhuh* *bhuh*

Man, no one is going to believe horror sound effects started playing for me!

*snap*

Oh, DAMMIT! There's the token "killer stepping on a twig so the victim turns around to die face-first" sound. I always hoped my life would end up making a good movie, but a Friday the 13th sequel? Man, even the film gods hate me.

*bhuh* *bhuh* *bhuh*

I am going to keep walking at a leisurely pace, partly due to pride and partly due to horror movie logical fallacy. Victims who pause, look around, get unnerved by sounds and finally start running like idiots ALWAYS get killed, therefore running away from suspicious sounds causes death!

*bhuh* *bhuh* *bhuh*

You know what, fuck dignity! I've reached the loving glow of the side light and, even if said killer was real, I had 'em in a sprint. I run through the gate, close it, run around to the back door, head inside, lock the door, turn on the lights and debate whether this is amusing enough to justify a post.

Well, who reads this but me and people brushing up on my recent history for their monthly visit with me? Only one person even remotely cares, so I'm doing it for me!

Accepting the inevitable

I'm not sure why, but my sketching of late has been along the lines of, "now that I have these characters, how many ensemble standards can I cover?" If your project has enough characters, how can you NOT force a Last Supper image upon a fully-suspecting populace?

I believe next on the list is.... Drawing your furry characters as humans! This is not much of a creative challenge for me, as the four main cast members WERE humans when 10-year-old me first drew them and the current versions are fairly faithful adaptations. Really, the only reason I haven't gone down this road yet is that I still hold out hope of somehow finding my sketchbooks from that time period. Farthest back I've found to this point was 8th grade, which was when I abandoned my children in favor of cartoons mocking my classmates and teachers. It's also somewhat painful to draw my characters at their most primitive of incarnations. Oh well, if I don't get any REAL ideas in the immediate future, I'll try that.

Pulling back a bit, my conclusions is that my current art mood is reflecting my internet situation. I can't keep a connection for more than a few minutes at a time, which means I can do my daily updates... and nothing else. You can't browse news or read comics with constant interruptions! Hell, even though blogging in theory just requires me to get to the posting screen and hit the "post" button when the connection returns, sometimes (ALL OF YESTERDAY) the connection gets so screwy the only solution is restarting the computer... and losing the unsaved blog post. The post you see for yesterday is the 4th or 5th attempt. Earlier drafts included the themes of THIS post. (Guess which common character treatment I decided wasn't worth sharing!)

I'm hoping for some stability soon. I *should* be painting. I *should* be working on the NINE WEEKS of Precocious comics I have scripted. Instead, I am bouncing around without focus. When then happens, uninspired rips on The Last Supper happen. No one wins.

Aww, the Bud Light!

Not the Bud Light! NOT THE BUD LIGHT!! Why couldn't you have taken me instead?!?

Ok, this is a cop-out, phone-it-in post that was predicted a week. (Have you ever seen a more lazily-drawn lamp?) It's not like I'm being social or anything this time. In fact, I spent all day in bed... just to see if I could. I'm a societal mirror: The apathy I feel towards my life is the same apathy the world feels towards me. I'm going back to bed.

Also, I totally want to sell Bud Lights in the future.

Blue is gray. War is peace. We have always been at war with Eastasia.

I didn't feel like working on the strip today (maybe later) and I had this new pad of Bristol board with a small selection of colored pencils. I've been wanting to see how Sky looked with her conceived gray tabby coloring. I didn't bring any gray pencils with me; nor could I find a pencil sharpener, which further limited the options. Fuck it, light blue is good enough!

Gene was added for balance and practice. Now that I look at him, I think his hair color needs to be changed. The joke is just a bit *too* obvious at this point. I guess I can play with various hair colors... or just continue to work in ink and ignore color completely.

Things are looking up!

I think what I like best about this sketch is how SLOPPY this horrible pun is! Does it even make sense? I mean, if Suzette perceives that she may be labeled as a "thing" then there will be blood! Best of all: The copyright information placed *just so* to muddle the idea even more. SPECTACULAR FAIL!

Also...check out the arrogance in posting this before any election returns are in! Look, barring MASSIVE election fraud, Obama has this thing. But with the last two elections...

You know what? Fuck it! I have been a cynic through this entire election cycle and I'm going to let myself get carried away for now. Heck, as I typed that last sentence I just sent my brother out to buy me celebratory booze. (My first liquor purchase in about... two years... wow.)

I may eat my words later, but at least I'll be drunk. Alcohol always gives me the munchies and all I have here are rice cakes. My words are scrumptious!