secret identity

More art is... coming? This month has been kinda... well, there's been a lot of it.

Last week was spent up in NoVA because my grandmother died. There were a few days in there (between the initial go-up-and-visit and the actual funeral stuff) where I stayed with a friend and just chilled out and explored DC a bit, which I haven't done since grade school. It was pretty cool. Seeing the rest of the fam was good, too, even if the circumstances weren't.

Going back later next month because she's actually being buried at Arlington National Cemetery (Air Force spouse) and there's a wait.

My mother's best friend's daughter (who I've known off and on since I was born) is getting married, so we're doing bridal showers and whatnot over the next few weeks. The wedding itself is a few days after the burial.

Also I am trying to find a new job, cos DAMN. The situation at current place is awful - not the actual work or the people or anything, but hours are getting cut like crazy, and with all the stuff I've got going on and all the requests I've been having to make, I'm getting practically no shifts at all. So that's... fun?

God, I still need to post about the Star Wars event I did. Which was like... a month ago. eesh!

(also in the middle of this post I found out some potentially BITCHIN' NEWS)

(but I have to sit on it)

New pieces up at the DeviantArt. More to come, hopefully later today. I've been BUSY.

I got me some inkin' pens. They're pretty neat. I figure I'll practice with these before moving on to brushes - I need a steadier hand.

naaaaaargh.

I am sad because I am too broke for MoCCA. But I will go on my own local adventures and sortof halfheartedly pretend I am having a fraction of the fun I would have there. And start saving for SPX. Indeed.

(rassum frassum yardwork)

I am all for a nice round of good hard work, don't get me wrong, but not on The Day When Everyone Else is Also Outside. Also not on A Day When I Really Don't Feel Like It. Maybe I can bargain to do my share later in the week (since I'm, you know, off on days when the rest of the world works). bah.

Banged out a coupla pieces today. Might do a devArt update.

SOON I shall have comicy goodness. Like, there's a site already, with comics uploaded and summore queued, but I'm waiting on it to be upgraded to the new WordPress and the new ComicPress so's I can make it look nice and all. That's my plan, y'see.

I've actually been drawing... not *every* day, but almost every day. I got the right motivation, it seems. Even if it's just some idle doodle, the fact that I'm doing *something* really helps, I think.

So yeah, other artists might be all 'dude, draw every day' and you might be all 'tchyeah, whatever' but I am here to tell you 'YES. TOTALLY.'

Nanomango is doing a summer session in June and I'm kinda wondering if I might be a bad enough dude.

- huge stack of play programs
- pile of ticket stubs
- doodled-on index cards and scraps of paper
- pictures of myself and all my ex-boyfriends (purged a few of those)
- nametags from more anime cons than I actually recall going to
- old scripts (oh god)
- a lyrics sheet of French Christmas carols
- my bronze medal from the Goldmind Games
- copy of my book
- two copies of the related newspaper article, which will never see the light of day again
- letters from Freshie
- old notepads
- the piece of driftwood I dunked in the Mississippi
- my Grand Prix ticket
- a notecard inscribed with the following:

not a bong--Gonzo
(bong + gonads?)
balloon filled w/poison
postcard w/SARS
rifle w/BAD MOFO
baddest mofo to ever fo a mo
"why do you keep persecuting yourself?!"
bad weed makes you lose wars
"don't lean on the pole. there's fascism."
pole, ants, flashback... YET.
ants --> SARS, butt cancer

(from 'don't lean on the pole' on I vaguely recall, but the top half of the list nets nothing)

- cheerleading picutre (aww)
- Chick tract
- Gideon bible handed out on campus on 9/11/01
- straw with a penis on it
- legs belonging to a Young Link action figure (just the legs)
- New Jersey transit schedules
- old lyrics (oh GOD)
- HAPPIES!
- a list of show dog names
- score card from the second-most offensive game of minigolf ever played
- campaign stickers from when I ran for SCA President in 8th grade (what the FUCK was I thinking?)

...but, of course, neither of the things I was looking for. Time to dig up a new box.

(P.S. I'm not sure what a "Welsh Corncob" was but I'm pretty sure it was a dance and not a sexual maneuver.)

So I was poking around some old backups and I found a little cache of digital pictures I took back in high school (at the Turn of the Century). Randy 'xkcd' Munroe is in a couple of them, but apparently he's the goddamn Sasquatch or something because he's blurred all to hell.



(It's a digital camera from 1999. Everything's blurry.)

(Also there's a slightly better picture, but this one has the lowest my-friends-will-kill-me factor.)

Again, like 'John Adams' - a doodly/bloggy thing in reaction to, in this case, Sweeney Todd. One page.

( snikt! )

This is kinda in the vein of the John Adams piece - that stream-of-consciouness "I need to draw so I will draw about random things" bit. It's from the beginning of the month, but I sat on it for a while.

It's under a cut because I'm nice like that.

( hooray )

- Sweeney Todd (movie soundtrack)
- Pirates of Penzance (opera house, not movie)
- TMBG (Apollo 18)
- Clem Snide, Eef Barzelay (various)
- Ben Folds (various)
- Wicked
- Hairspray (2007 movie)
- Alanis Morisette (Under Rug Swept)

and Party Shuffle that mess.

I have scavenged the old printer/scanner/copier from my dad's home office (which was getting replaced because it can't print for beans). The scanning function works awesomely, and straight to a memory card even! Best acquisition of the day! It was gonna go to the dump otherwise, so I am hell of saving the environment. GO ME.

The past few days have actually been madly productive, in the grand scheme of things.

Now I'm sketchin' some stuff while watching Kurtz and Krahulik work at the same time. All livecast 'n shit.

(The best part is when Kurtz takes a break and pulls up the site in his own window, so we're watching him watch Gabe, and in *that* tiny window we can see him watching himself watching Gabe, and it's just an intensely recursive experience.)

Oh jesus, Wright. First we have the big lost-the-baby storyline, and now the dog gets it?

This is the associated Keenspot newsbox image.

Yes, the baby storyline was ballsy and I respect that. This is just too much, man.

(Ironically, one of my favorite details in Planet Terror is the fact that the kid and the dog both die completely meaningless, stupid, gratuitous deaths. But that's because it's a horror/disaster movie, and kids and dogs are more or less sacred.)

I guess the newsbox upsets me more than anything else, because I've already had like three near-death-experiences between two dogs in the past, like, year or so. So getting a dose of OMG DEAD PUPPY with my comics is, uh... yeah.

I'm not like upset-upset or anything. Nor do I think this is a WRONG WRONG WRONG MOVE or anything like that. I just kinda look at it and go 'oh no.'

Don't mind me, I'm just sick and cranky. I should take some meds now or something. People of the internet, don't ever think you have to change to please me. Unless you're being douchebags. Then you should maybe think about cuttin' that out.

Spent last night assembling my new drawing desk. It's... well, it's a flat surface. That tilts, with some effort. Took me like two freaking hours to assemble. And lots of wrenching. Oh, the wrenching. It's hard to feel mighty when you're working with a little metal letter L.

The upside is that I am actually using it to draw on. I'm laying down the pencils for a comic page right now, in fact.

I really wanna watch the John Adams finale, but the TVs with HBO access are downstairs and people are watching sports and the news. boooo. At least there's On Demand when no one's home. So instead I will doodle around and wallow in my awful allergies. And listen to more Eef Barzelay (late of Clem Snide) and Ben Folds.

It would seem I just got linked by demiurgent for that thing I did, so I guess I should bump my bad hair day whining.

I have things of moderate interest here, here, and here (NWS) and/or here (same NWS, second pass).

hooray.

Working off my desktop because the laptop (my primary machine) needed a little rest. It's getting on in years and gets a little cranky sometimes.

For some reason, my tablet didn't install quite right on this machine or something, because the copy of PhotoShop I've got doesn't register pressure sensitivity. Other programs do, though, so I've been messing with them here and there. This was done in SmoothDraw NX, which is nice but lacks a layer function, so I can't do anything too complex in it. Still, not bad for a five-minute job.

Now I have to decide if I'm going through with a haircut. bleh.

My friend the Schmidtty worked on this! It was shot on Virginia Beach. No special effects - that is an actual couch on the actual beach, with actual Al Sharpton and actual Pat Robertson.

Here, I'll post some pics she took (Schmidtty I hope this is OK).

see, couch:


Oh, and there was some other guy bumming around the set, too. Here he is being a nuisance (on the right):




I heard they finally got him out of the way by letting him hold the cue cards. Gawd, this guy must have nothing better to do. :P

(Schmidtty basically has the coolest job.)

My mom yelled at me to come down and look because Fox News had a guy at NYCC (New York Comic Con). I guess the Pope's taking a breather.

I only caught the tail end of it, but it seems like it was your usual cosplay lineup and 'who are YOU supposed to be?'. meh.

This is a test, kinda. I have a little more like it. Basically it started with me saying 'argh blargh I never DRAW any more' and then telling someone I would spend my day watching some of the John Adams HBO miniseries and doodle while I watched and show him the results.

Well, having the house to myself, I started screwing around early and it turned into something that's not entirely about John Adams. The narrative isn't directed specifically at my friend - it's things I would have probably blogged if I could be bothered to go upstairs at the time.

It's very stream-of-consciousness and unrehearsed and whatnot - just putting the ink straight on the paper with few references and no pre-sketches.

I apologize if my handwriting is illegible and will gladly translate/transcribe anything for anyone.

so.



edit: There are, as one would expect, some (out of context) comments about the series. So, uh. "May contain spoilers for American History." You have been advised.

MORE REMODELLING

D:

This means that my one "maxxin-and-relaxxin house-to-myself" day becomes my "home alone with the dogs and the contractors" day and a veritable carnival of anxieties (me + strangers, even relatively safe ones, don't mix). Also they're coming to tear out our windows and put in new ones at some point, which means hella upheaval of my personal space.

I am drawing, though, which is awesome. I may defy all odds and actually post a PS comic before the week is out. That would be rad.

Aiming for stuff by the end of April, though. Considering I will actually be going out and having a life here and there, I'll hopefully have more material to work with.

In order to build up my MOJO, I'm taking requests for things to draw. Not commissions. Just name, like... I dunno, something... and I'll try to draw it. No complex concepts. I just want prompts.

Last week I did a bizarre kind of stream-of-consciousness sketchbloggy comic-ish thing (I promised a friend I'd doodle my way through John Adams and post the results, but got started early). Once I find a suitable place and format for it, it'll go up. I might do another one tomorrow.