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!

Roman Culture to others: OM NOM NOM

Oh, those Etruscan blues...



Am I so petty that I take a casual in-joke reference as a dare? Do I really need to ask these questions?

Only an art student could think "Etruscan Blues" would be an awesome song title, and only an art student could capture it. I am no longer an art student, so allow me some leeway. (I still intend to do grad school, so the spirit remains within!)

The concept is these Etruscan folk are doing their thing, civilization and all, when these young upstart Romans strut up, and on, and over, and by... It's like the Italian Borg Collective! As a student of the archaic arts (not as ominous or mystical as it sounds) I see these young, modern upstarts swipe what the need and digitize the rest. I'm a traditional ink and paper cartoonist, who uses the computer as a took to process the work and (usually) preserve the initial quality. This has, it seems, become a rarity.

First digital coloring happened, and I said nothing, for I thought it a fun exercise. The Waccom tablets came, and I said nothing, for that was actually kinda cool. Then someone posted on The Webcomics List forums looking for hand-drawn and hand-lettered comics, and only a few of us remained... with and embarrassed me halfway out the door and quietly shuffling around.

For me, original strips are important in cartoon. It's a real example of what you've done. You can hang them on gallery walls! They are special, because they show the craft and effort the artist put forth with his or her hands! They are outdated? If every strip is in color, it often means the original is just some pencil. (VG Cats is like this, I think.) Waccom-drawn, clip-art and sprite comics all exist purely in digital forms. Even people who letter in Photoshop don't have a complete original to offer. That's sad. It's also what I'm doing now. For the Precocious parents arc I'm digitally coloring *and* digitally adding text. Yes, it's a font of my own handwriting, but anyone looking at my originals can see the decline. Dialog is hashed in, often incomplete or missing completely. I just need to write enough to figure out where to put the dialog balloons. After that, it's all in Photoshop. That's sorta sad, because the completeness of the original is gone. Progress has come through, taken what it wanted and discarded the rest. Etruscan blues.

Of course, unlike the Etruscans, I am free to switch back to hand-crafted comics as soon as the arc is done. Will I? Am I going to be seduced by the convenience? Am I going to head out and buy a Waccom tablet? Who knows.

As for the actual painting here, it's been a fun flashback experience. The Etruscan blues idea is 10 years old, and this painting looks like something I would have made 10 years ago. The idea was to have people or faces being assimilated into architecture. That's what this, even if my MASSIVE STYLIZATION has taken over to send most of that to an, "Uh, I'll take your word for it," level. Also, after working on all the large canvasses, my old canvas size seems positively tiny! The color here is probably far off (now with three monitors which don't agree, I've lost all perspective) so know it's a bit darker, and was done with periwinkle, white and a dark gray. Let your imagination color correct!

"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.