Ha! Ha! I'm drawing background characters!

With the current Precocious storyline, I'm starting to push myself artistically. By moving characters outside of the standard environments and into the big city, I can no longer rely on simple color schemes to indicate the settings - I need to draw some backgrounds! And once I draw those backgrounds, however simple they may be, I must then populate them with bystanders! Needless to say I am both excited and terrified. I need the challenge. I need the practice. I need to make sure I get strips done for every day. SO NO GOOFING OFF!

So far, I have put zero planning into what background characters looks like. I jump in with my pencil, scribble a body and fill in details on a whim. That works ok, I guess, but maybe I should try to do something will all these extras? I suppose this is a good time to hand out cameos, but I draw cartoon doggies and kitties. That greatly limits who I can show off. (Although I'm willing to furrify a person, if asked.) There's also the fact that my style is so simple, any cameo renditions would be largely unrecognizable - especially when those characters end up only being 10 pixels high in the final comic. Eh. Who knows?

You know what, this blog totally sucks. Blogger's constant glitchery has totally thrown me off of what was a rather weak idea for a post in the first place. I'm posting it anyway (assuming Blogger works) so it can count towards my blog quote, but I'm gonna feel bad about it. I'll need to make it up to everyone later.

At least this awful post is the product of lots of non-awful work and progress!

*sings* Raindrops keep falling on my bed...

Unlike most stories that involve a wet spot on one's bed, this one isn't about personal shame and embarrassment - which makes it a unique entry for this blog as well!

That wet spot appeared a few weeks ago, prompting me to completely flip out. It is not supposed to rain indoors! My feeble mind couldn't process it! What followed was chaos, as I dragged everyone around me into a panic as well.

My poor upstairs neighbor was dragged home from a social outing because the obvious guess was something in his apartment was leaking. He couldn't find anything, and suggested it was condensation in my AC vent. Ok, so all I had to do was turn off the AC for a while and wait for the handyman to arrive and fix it. Not hard, until I realized I now live in the south, which spends half the year actively on fire.

But I did it. I survived until the repair crew arrived. In my bedroom. At 9am. On my day off. With me still asleep. Since I hadn't answered the door, the building's maintenance man assumed I wasn't in and used his key. Awkward situation for everyone! Still, the fixing was happening. Yay! Life was perfect again!

So, yeah, it started leaking again. Harder than before. (Good thing I hadn't moved my bed back into position yet.) This time the maintenance guy cut a hole in my ceiling to get a look at the cause. It was definitely not my AC that was the culprit, so cool air resumed! The water was coming from up above. Once again my upstairs neighbor got questioned. Once again, no leak was found. I was left with a hole in my ceiling and a ladder in my bedroom, so I could get up in there the next time a leak started and see what was going down. That... that was kinda cool. I kinda looked forward to the next leak.

Last night, the water began to flow again. Once again, pans had to be laid out to collect water. At his point, my one pan had grown to three needed to catch all the drips. As it was the middle of the night, I wasn't about to call anyone. I slept on my couch - again - knowing I was gonna have to ruin someone's Mothers Day in the morning.

Woke up late. Checked the room. Didn't look like any new water. Took a shower. Emerged to a DELUGE! Water was coming down fast and furious. Three pans could only handle the main leak. New dripping spots were forming elsewhere on the ceiling, so this became a full-on five-pan leak!

I sent a tentative text to the maintenance guy. He was out of town, as expected. Texted my upstairs neighbor again, asking if anything new was going on. He was baffled that this was still going on, again asking if it was my AC. I told him the hole in the ceiling proved that wasn't the cause, and that promptly brought him down for a look. I think he was impressed by the calamity!

Seeing how the water was dripping down from high up, he returned to his apartment to make one more check for a cause. This time... guess what? He spotted a cold water pipe that was leaking like crazy. WE FOUND THE CAUSE! He shut off the water. The dripping stopped. Plans for repair are now underway. Life is good. All things now return to normal.

Well, not all things...

Your webcartoonist has evolved!

When writing the most recent news post in the site, I wrote the line in the title. I quickly deleted it, but the thought got in my head. "What kind of Pokemon would I be?" I had to find out!

And so began a sage of putting too much thought into something silly! The sketchbook came out and the ideas started flowing. As an intense Pokemon player and insane nerd, I put a lot of care into all the little details. The result...

Meet Pokemon Chrispy!



The first step in Pokemon creation was choosing my type. I quickly settled on dark, as it both fits with my sense of humor and reflects on my tendency to harp on the negative.

Next up, I needed to figure out what form my Pokemon would take. I figured a kitty pokemon fit best because I wuv kitties, I draw kitties and, well, it meant my evolution could be based on a Savannah cat! (See below.) It all fits!

And now the over-analysis begins. I got conceptual. What kind of Pokemon role player would I be? Well, I'm a impulsive type who can do wonders when I get going - but I'm hardly durable. Hitting me back hard makes me crumble. It seems obvious to me - a glass cannon Special attack sweeper! I hit the battlefield, throw everything I have at the opponent and hope to hell they don't survive it, because one good hit will do me in.

Now for some details. Every pokemon gets a nature and special ability. For nature, I chose to go with timid. Not only is that me, but in-game, that means I get increased speed at the cost of physical strength - it's the most common nature of actual special attack sweepers! For ability, I knew this one going in: Defeatist. Not a positive reflection of me, but recently accurate. In-game, this a pokemon with a defeatist ability is a juggernaut - right up until things get difficult. If their HP gets reduced below halfway, the pokemon "gives up" and only fights half as hard. A pokemon can also carry a held item. I could pessimist here and give myself a ring target, which means every attack always hits me, but I'm going to highlight my potential and give myself some wise glasses, which slightly powers up my attacks. (Plus, yanno, I'm wearing glasses.)

What moves would I have for the unevolved Chrispy? He's a dark type, so he needs a dark move. Night Daze seemed the best fit, due to the general sleep cycle of a cartoonist. I also threw in Nasty Plot for good measure, which is perfect for the wannabe looking to break through to top tiers. I'm an artist, so it seems only right I get to use the move Sketch. (The bonus here being that, in competitive pokemon battling, me having sketch and decent base stats would make me highly sought after! It's nice to be desired!) Finally, I had to go with the move I use the most in real life: Withdraw. Withdraw boosts one's defense up one level - which is useless for a defeatist pokemon as all it means is that the opponent gets one free turn to disable you. So, yeah, it fits.

But this isn't all about sadness and sucking. I SAID I EVOLVED, DAMMIT! I've become new! I've become better! I've become... Chrisperior!

This grand evolution adds on a new type: Fire! Because I'm on fire! Get it? Get it? Uh... moving on.

I get new moves! Energy Ball not only symbolizes my new productivity, but it is a GREAT move for a dark/fire type pokemon! Overheat utilizes the new fire typing and hints at how easily I could burn myself out if I push too hard too fast, as the move sharply reduces my stats after I use it. Focus blast is another great competitive move that can also represent my struggle with ADHD. Focus blast gets the job done great... when it hits. It's, unfortunately, not that reliable. Yeah, that fits.

It's time upgrade my held item from one set of glasses to another. Enter the choice specs, which limits you to one move but makes that move super-powerful. Let's face it, that's my best-case scenario as a cartoonist. I'm not that versatile. If I can make sure the one thing I *can* do is done well, that's a win for me.

I'll let the defeatist nature stay for now, as the threat of relapse constantly looms. Knowing how quickly things can turn south, even when one is the Mary Sue of the Pokemon world, can hopefully keep alert. The second I start slacking off and taking things for granted, the bad habits get back in. There is another ability options, should a dream world Chrispy appear: Moody. Moody means I'd have wild mood (stat) swings every turn. Good for painting me as unstable, yet functional, but it's also a WAY overpowered ability in the long run when game play is concerned. I'm not that conceited to give myself any credit like that quite yet.

So, yeah, I put in WAY too much thought here and spent WAY too much time on this one gag. Whatever, man. It was a fun thought exercise and I'm quite pleased with the results.

The points system

It takes a certain brand of crazy to attempt the daily cartooning route. The need to constantly produce - and produce work of quality - brings with it quite a bit of stress. All it takes is one bad day to throw a daily cartoonist into the downward spiral of schedule slip, and I'd been tempting that fate for a long time.

I had gotten into a bad habit. Instead of running a healthy comic buffer, I left script problems bog me down and reduce me to day-to-day cartooning. For most of the past month, it was not uncommon for me to START drawing the comic at 9pm for a 12am deadline. I can think of at least two times when I made it with less than five minutes to spare, one time my internet went out on me at 11:30pm without my comic uploaded and, of course, the times I had to put out an uncolored comic at midnight. Not only was that method of production risky, but the constant working without a net led to stress and a few rush jobs that were not fully developed.

But this is the new, productive Chrispy at work now! I'm making a conscious effort to restore myself to old glory and push even farther into awesomeness. It's time to bring order back to the chaos that my production process had become.

The problem with doing a comic start-to-finish every day is that you have to work on all comic levels at the same time, and that's usually not how artistic types work. We are moody folk. Sometimes we are full of ideas, so we should spend our time scripting and not wasting that momentum in the tedium of drawing layouts. Conversely, sometimes the brain is full of static and doing a less-creative task like lettering or inking is best to restore order. Sometimes all you want to do is draw for hours with nothing else dragging you down. Sometimes the thought of coloring a comic seems unbearable because it means moving to the computer in the bedroom and not being able to watch playoff hockey during that time. All cartoonist have that problem.

My solution of the moment is to introduce a point system. I break down the comic process into four steps: Scripting, penciling, inking and coloring. Every time I accomplish one of those steps, I give myself a point. Four points equals one successful comic made. Every additional point means the building of the buffer that is vital to this process' success!

The second I have a buffer, I have given myself the flexibility and breathing room to use the system properly. If I don't have to complete a comic that day, I can focus on whatever my strength of the moment is.

For example, Tuesday was a penciling day. I penciled four comics and did the layouts for four others. Monday the goal was coloring the three strips I had inked on Sunday. All this was set up by a massive scripting/drawing session on Saturday. On my desk right now are three inked strips ready for coloring, one strip ready for inking and four strips ready for penciling. There is a text file forever open on each of my computers to catch all script ideas I have. I have options! It's been MONTHS since I had options!

The best part about having options is having less stress. I don't stop at four points anymore. When doing a full comic a day, the final posting seemed like the end of the job. I would go off and do something else, sick of cartooning for the day. By working on what I want to work on, I keep pressing on. I did my four points of penciling today and pressed on with inking the strips because I was excited about the process.

The more points you get, the more everyone wins. I'm trying to keep this momentum as long as I can, because if I can get it fed the glory of the past shall be reclaimed. The more buffer produced with Precocious, the more side projects I can pursue, the more focus I can give to positive things like catching up on my reading and writing inane blog posts that go on forever while proclaiming the obvious as if it was something just invented!

Like I said, everyone wins.

I am not Commander Riker

Growing the beard does nothing to improve my life, appearance or the general quality of all things surrounding me - yet I keep growing one anyway!

Why? First, because I am profoundly lazy. As I am decidedly non-wolfman, my beard doesn't grow with any aggressive speed. There's not much beard change from day to day, so it's very easy to shrug my shoulders and say, "Meh, I'll tackle it tomorrow." As time went on, the beard procrastination time grew longer and longer - until I actually had a REAL. FRIGGIN. BEARD. That was unexpected.

Compounding my laziness is my bathroom's plumbing. For some reason, the water in the sink takes a long time to heat up. So every morning, when I would plan to shave, I would stumble over to the sink, turn it on, wait a minute, give up and return to bed for a few more precious minutes of sleep. I decided to go with the crazy beard thing in Savannah. It makes me look like a proper art student! I even grew to like having a moderate amount of facial hair.

But the thing about hair is that it grows, and nice beards look nice for a limited time. Sure, I could buy a beard trimmer and just use that - but implies I am committed to having a beard. Even though I've rocked facial hair for most of the past year, I still don't consider myself a bearded dude. All cartoon Chrispys drawn by me are clean-shaven! No, my beard will only exist as a sign of laziness and insanity! I'll let it grow until it become truly hideous, shave it off and start the cycle anew.

A few weeks ago, the time to shave came. Like a true lazy person, I shrugged it off and said I'd do it the next day. There was only one problem: THE HOCKEY PLAYOFFS STARTED THAT DAY!

It's a tradition in hockey to grow a playoff beard while your team is in the playoffs, and I was going to partake in that tradition this year. If I shaved after the playoffs started, that would jinx my team. But... but I REALLY needed to shave!

Well, seeing as my team is the Washington Capitals, who are known for choking in the playoffs year after year, I figured that problem would take care of itself. And if they succeeded, DUDE, MY TEAM IS WINNING! A crazy "I'm homeless and unstable" beard is TOTALLY worth that! Sure enough, the Caps knocked out their first round opponent with relative ease. Go beard!

And then round two began. Loss. Loss. Loss. The Caps are still alive, but things are as bleak as they could be. You know what, guys? You don't need my beard's help any more. Shortly after the game ended today in heartbreaking fashion, I walked to the bathroom and grabbed my razor. I am done with you, playoff beard!

Despite my massive jinxing of my team, I will continue to root for the Caps to pull the miracle. They don't need my beard to succeed - THE MAGIC WAS IN THEM THE WHOLE TIME!

(Yeah, they're gonna get swept and it's all my fault.)

Buying in bulk makes you feel like a pro

Tuesday's strip used up the last template in my current pack, so that means it's time to bust out the big bad box of Bristol board! Behold: 300 strip templates just waiting for me to taint them with my ink!

It's silly, but every time I exhaust these packs of 100 it brings mini-celebration. I've outlived another pack! I've rocked the world 100 more times! There was once a day when I bought these templates in packs of 14 each. Now I look at the blocks of 100 and shrug it off as if it was nothing. I know I can conquer these things, and I know I can make that conquering worthwhile. (You are not allowed to disagree!)

And now, it is time to crack one of these packs open and defile the first victim. Woohoo!

A great idea, for more capable hands...

So last quarter I took a painting course at SCAD. It was a class of 15 senior painting majors - and me, a SEQA major whose painting experience peaked at painting 102. It was... brutal. My classmates had no desire to welcome anyone new, especially an evil outsider. My professor, while kind, was frustrated to have to deal with someone with so little painting experience. And, of course, I met this challenge with a full-on melt down due to this coinciding with the loss of my grandparents.

Come midterms, I had to show work I knew was weak and, boy, did they let me have it. It wasn't just pointing out that the work was bad, but they treated me as hopelessly ignorant. I wasn't a real painter. To them, I was someone coming into their territory with the arrogance that I could do their job better without any training. They were out for blood.

My reaction to this critique? A big ol' SCREW YOU to everyone involved! You know what? Cartoonists aren't inferior beings! They have every right to be displayed on gallery walls, and I was going to make sure that happened! Not only was I glorifying myself to taunt them, but I designed my series to allow me to use (the horror) store-bought canvasses I already had on hand. (In this class, if you didn't shell out the crazy money and spend all those hours of effort with construction and gesso, you weren't a real painter.) Any questions were hand waved by me claiming it was part of the concept - and concept is king in the art world!

As malicious as my motives were, this isn't a bad idea at all. It would be fun to be the painter who set out to paint portraits of webcomics' best and brightest. I was thrilled to be able to paint portraits of cartoonists I know and admire!

There was only one problem: I was still in a major funk. The reason I've held off from sharing these paintings until now is because, frankly, they aren't strong enough. I care about the people in these pictures and I wanted to do the best for them, so anything short of perfect would not do! I'd really like to see what I could accomplish with a redo and a mind with more clarity. Maybe, one day, this webcartoonist project could be resurrected and become something after all.

If you think I'm doing the typical self-loathing artist shtick here, then consider this merely the pendulum swinging back. For the second half of my painting class, I pretended I was nothing but gung-ho about this series. I put on my best BS face and enthusiastically explained how every mistake and bit of awkwardness was actually deliberate execution of my concept. For my critique, I put a smile on my face and talked boldly - even going to the point where I replaced my proposed sixth portrait with a tiny "to be continued" sign that was meant to mimic the end of a comic issue. (Note the arrangement of the portraits loosely resembles a comic book page.) While they frowned upon the fact the "to be continued" piece was clearly done the morning of - it might not have even been dry when I hung it - they bought my reasoning! Even though it was clear to everyone that I wasn't very good that quarter, my "conviction" salvaged my grade.

And, you know what, I do have conviction about this project. It SHOULD Be awesome. I just needs a better painter behind it. (And maybe, one day, that better painter could be me.)

Since you're dying to know, here are my subjects:

Top-left: Isabel Marks of Namir Deiter

Top-right: Jimmy Misanthrope of Agents of the Endtimes

Mid-left: Sarah 'Pickles' Dill of Distillum

Mid-right: Yeah, that's me. It was the prof's idea and I went with it.

Bottom: Irene Pitcairn of The Elves of LlueGarnok

Much love to all of them for allowing me to paint them. Much apologies to them for coming up a bit short. YOU WILL BE AVENGED!

Curse you, cartoon animals!

(I'm gonna *try* to get this blog going again, but I make no promises about regular updates yet!)

When I first conceived of what would become Precocious, my characters were all human. They stayed human in my mind in all the years between inception and when I decided to give the strip a go. Then, suddenly, CRITTERS! What made me change?

First, I'd always had an affinity for what I called "philosophizing animal" strips. I thought that adapting animal forms would add a level of cuteness to the strip that would help me out.

Second, and I'm not sure I should admit this, it was a practical choice to get my cartooning earlier. Let the record show I was/am a rather inept cartoonist. I've never had a natural talent for it and I'm only where I am now because passion overrode the shame of poor drawing skills. The thing about cartoon animals - the human eye is WAY more tolerant of them. Think of all the cartoon mice you've seen - they all look completely different from each other, but we readily accept them as mice. Anthropomorphic animals aren't real and we are more likely to accept the artist's vision. When it comes to drawing humans, we all know what humans look like. Looking at humans drawn by an artist with a shaky, unformed style (like me!) draws the eye right to all the inaccuracies and errors. It takes the reader out of the moment and doesn't create a pleasant reading experience. By going with cartoon animals, I was able to launch the strip much earlier in my stylistic development that if I had chosen humans.

Finally, I chose animal forms because it create a separation from real life. It let me craft my own world, with its own rules, in which my characters could play. My goal was to create something universal; something that could be read decades down the road and still be understood. By keeping my universe to itself, I could avoid taking easy shots at topical humor that might not be remembered in the eyes of history. It was a good idea at the time, but it's gotten me into a heap of trouble in practice.

First of all, I clearly haven't avoided topical humor and real life references completely. Ignoring reality completely is a great way to limit one's storytelling potential. So here I am, having my cake and eating it too - praying no one thinks too hard about things. "But if everyone here is an animal, does that mean those famous people being referenced are animals too?" AAAARRRGGGHHH! I fully intend to never address it, but is sweeping it under the rug really an acceptable solution? It *has* to be.

Cheap as it is, I have to go with the "it's just a comic strip" excuse. If I think the gag is good, I invoke the rule of funny and go with it. It's sloppy, but freeing. If I *didn't* rely on this principle, I would be paralyzed. While, ideally, I ably handle both, I'll always focus on humor more than continuity.

Using animal characters just makes things worse for me when it comes to these issues. Sure, I can say over and over they are merely meant to be cutified humans and are thus treated as humans - or point out my choice of dog/cat depiction was mostly an attempted ship-sinking visual cue on character compatibility - but I put that issue out there and I have to deal with the consequences. "Dogs can't eat chocolate!" "They are eating pork! Did they murder an anthro pig?" "Why won't you introduce some bunnies to the strip?" "Why can't a dog marry a cat?"

*head explodes*

For me, the animal thing was just another twist on standard comic surreality. The main characters almost never change their outfits! No one ages, yet they (sometimes) retain memories of past years' events! Little details constantly shift around to best fit the joke! If we can accept that (and, yes, some of us can't) then we should be able to gloss over the animal thing. After all, aside from two regrettable strips acknowledging that they have tails, have they EVER mentioned anything about being animals?

I hope this doesn't sound too much like complaining. It's more of me rambling to get my thoughts out. The reason people ASK these questions is because people CARE about the comic - and that is the most important thing. I will gladly frustrate readers with my animal creations, and suffer the consequences, if it means I have readers! It's also my fault for playing both hard and loose with continuity. Some elements of the strip are locked into place. Others, which I don't deem as important, can change from day to day. That's lazy cartooning on my part, and I apologize for it.

The motivation behind the creation of this essay comes from my struggles with Monday's strip. In this arc, I am taking the kids to the "city." I've never given the city a name, but for all intents and purposes it's Washington DC. I'm struggling with how much reality to allow into a highly fictional comic. Do I include the highly-recognizable monuments? Do I make lots of DC references? Do I name drop the museums they might visit? Every time I add in a real-world reference, I open myself up to the "so... how does this jive with animals?" scrutiny.

I wish I had a good solution, but right now I'm set to cruise forward with a "don't think too hard" message - which kinda conflicts with a comic that (in theory) praises intelligence and intellectual curiosity, doesn't it? I fail. :-(

Happy Valentine's Day!

It might not be the best in quality, but I decided to whip up a little image to honor this romantic day. There's an upside to everything, right? Enjoy!

I'm running out of family!

My grandfather passed away last night, and I'm having a hard time figuring out what to write here.

Unlike with the shock of losing my grandmother, this one was a long time in coming. He had been given weeks to live over three years ago, but had defied the odds for so long that I had become convinced he would outlive us all. In truth, he had left us long ago, as advanced Alzheimer's had destroyed his mind. I hope you none of you ever have to go through the pain that is seeing Alzheimer's erase a loved one. It's devastating.

As many of you know, I had spent most of the last few years living with my grandparents and helping care for my grandfather. I only moved on to SCAD when my little brother moved in and the family hired a full-time nurse for him. Being with my grandparents had been my life for so long, it's hard to conceive that chapter of my life is over now that they're gone. Their house had become my home, and without them... I don't know where I belong.

Because I used up all my allowed absences when my grandmother passed, I will be unable to drive up to Virginia and attend the funeral. Because there's such a small break between quarters, I doubt I'll be seeing family then as well. Because of all the make-up work I've accrued, I don't have time to pout and worry anyway. I have to accept it and keep on working.

I hope this is the last depressing post I have to make for a while. I want to get back to sharing progress on the comic and my painting - and I should have some work to show you soon. Just give me a few days to center myself, ok?