Nap the day away!

It's been a bizarre day, devoted to unconsciousness! Why was I so tried? What the heck do I do? I do nothing! NOTHING! Zzzzzzzzzz....

It's not like an early schedule is vital for me, being unemployed and all, but there is stigma and shame involved here. I really should be awake for daylight activities - if only because that's when the food-providing locations are open. (What do you expect me to do, cook?)

Now comes the big question: Do I roll with the late-night antics, or try to sleep and reset the internal clock? My only confidence is that I will be choosing the wrong option!

The quest to make money

Hey, look, I'm working on commissions! Maybe one day I will earn more than I spend! Maybe.

I got busy portraiting today after I got approval of my proposal sketch. I have been approved to go wild, and I WILL! It's actually been quite a while since I worked on portraits, so I'm easing back into it. Good linework down? Sweet! Take a break and savor the victory!

Tomorrow is going to be interesting on the commission front, as that Bob Marley mural project is looking more and more likely to happen. I'm meeting with the owner to see if we can reach an agreement over cost. (Let's see if I can screw that up with my demands!) Murals require cash up front for concept development. GIMMIE! Payday aside, the mural thing will be cool because it's a new challenge. I'll have to do some research on how one actually muralizes things...

Caribbean vibes

Behold, an hour exercise attempt at drawing Bob Marley. Why am I drawing a reggae god? I didn't even know how to *spell* "reggae" until Firefox's spell check helped! I'm entertaining the idea of painting a mural at a new Caribbean restaurant. It's unlikely this will happen, but I might as well TRY to grab some art-based income. My style is colorful and bold, which is a great match with contemporary Caribbean art, so this could be a good match! There's just that pesky Bob Marley getting in my way. I've gotta render him better than this!

The Phantom Hourglass

Edit: Uploaded a larger version so you can actually SEE what's in the sketch when you click on the image.

How do people have jobs? Seriously, from the time I wake to the time I collapse I am either working, thinking about what to work on next or aggressively unwinding so I can remain sane enough to work. The more I learn about this webcomic world, the more I realize how behind I am.

Then again, I put myself in these situations. I want to be a badass, but badass requires effort. Today started a five week effort in which I will present the parents arc in color, with update days expanding into Sunday. It should be awesome enough to make up for the awkward timeline shift. The only problem is that I'm currently working without a net! I used my entire month of buffer strips to take care of many other art things in my life. I put myself out there and drummed up lots of support. I tweaked the website to be more awesome with each incarnation. I made a bunch of giant paintings and submitted them to a show. For the next Precocious strips? I sketched them out! That's a good thing, but it still leaves inking and coloring.

Oh god, the coloring. With any luck, I'll speed up as I go. Right now I'm like an awkward teenage trying to take off a difficult bra. It's still rewarding in the end, but the process is lengthy and disheartening.

Fortunately, I don't have to color this one quite yet. This is the "cover" illustration, which won't run until the arc is completed. I'm not sure how much comes across, since I messed up repeatedly to cause eraser (and, subsequently, scanner) hell. It should be nice and spiffy in the end, but for now you get a sketch on the sketch blog. (I didn't see it coming.)

The new goal is to produce two strips a day, allowing the buffer to build up anew. In addition, I have general ad/website/life maintenance to do. That's a full time job in itself, so I have to choose my battles. Finally, I need to keep the sketching and art going to fuel the blog/my soul. If painting becomes a relaxing luxury, that would actually be pretty sweet.

Right now, my unwind time is spent playing a certain Zelda game you should be guess from the post title. It's one of the best designed games I've ever played, and it is a lot of fun... but to play a game in which the temple one visits over and over is a race against the clock that ends with your soul being sucked out if you fail... what was I thinking? Last night I screwed up repeatedly, died (had the item to save me at least) and nearly ran out of time. I finished the dungeon with 9 seconds to go, which is not only miserable pacing, but meant I was stressing and panciking all through the last three floors. WAY TO UNWIND, ME!

For my next trick, I'm going to sooth my aching drawing hand by putting it in a blender!

The nerdy equivalent of a hangover?

Usually when I try to do a commentary thing, it's an attempt to flex my muscles and see if I can channel my egotism and self-serving ways into essay that's worth read. Last night I had a bunch of ideas that, in a perfect world, would have all folded into each other nicely and make me look like an untapped literary superstar. This didn't happen. As he who cannot dance blames the floor, me who cannot type blames the keyboard. I don't know if I could have pulled it all together, but technical difficulties (everything in this room is dying on me) stopped me from even trying.

Either way, this worries me. My life mostly hinges on me having more natural talent than everyone else. I need to write better than writers, market better than marketers, network better than agents, talk better than orators charm folks better than scumbags.

All I'm trained in is art, and the thing with art is... it's kinda hard to out-art other artists. Those bastards just keep changing the definition! Sustaining oneself as an artist is about becoming a generally skilled (note that I didn't say talented) illustrator or carving out your niche and desperately hoping there's an audience. I can do everything right in presentation, speech and skill-level; but if my "brand" of art isn't what the charge wants, I'm out of a job. Crap artists end up doing ad layout for bad newspapers. Good artists end up unemployed until they find a working balance of niche market and willingness to be a whore - man, I need to paint more chicks - or give up by designating art the side-business or a hobby

All my training is in a field where one's good angle could circumvent another's skill and talent. This is why I must blather here, give lectures to my poor friends, research the creative process behind disciplines and work on my many thousands of potential writing projects. I need to be good at *all* these things to overcome the cold hard fact that I am not remotely trained in any of 'em!

Trained professionals: I am coming to destroy you!

(If I don't die in the gutter first.)