| Introduction |
[Oct. 28th, 2022|12:14 pm] |
Welcome! You've stumbled across the blog/livejournal of Rivkah. I am the artist/writer/creator (ie. graphic novelist) of the YA graphic novel series Steady Beat (amongst other short stories, works, and contributions). Steady Beat is a 13+ series about coming to terms with our place in life, our families and communities, and the people we love for being who they are rather than whom we expect them to be. It's about growing up and discovering ourselves. I am also working on an all-ages series, but that one's top secret, so I can't say too much about it for now!
Contained within these pages are entries of my personal journey as I manage the daily struggles and joys of being an artist and writer for a living. It's possible! But it takes a lot of hard work and dedication. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I leap for joy. And I hope that whatever you get from my sharing these experiences is something you can take and use in your own life. For inspiration. As a springboard to follow your own dreams.
I try to keep all posts at a PG level, but anything that goes above (such as my sketches from life drawing) go behind a cut.
Feel free to take a walk through my gallery. However, I don't update the website very often, so all the new artwork you'll find mostly on this blog.
And please, feel free to introduce yourself and to friend me. There's a lot of publish-sensitive content and original ideas under the friends-cuts you can't see otherwise!!! And I like when people say 'hi.' I'm horrible about getting back to emails but it certainly makes my day to read them!
Cheerio!
-Rivkah 10-26-2006 |
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| The importance of knowing anatomy |
[Jul. 14th, 2009|04:23 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  the picture isn't exaggerating | ] |
While I've always purported the importance of knowing anatomy, telling nearly every young artist I meet (and many older) to take at least one life drawing class at some point in their life, I've never really taken my own advice and studied anatomy truly in depth until rather recently. It's one thing to look in a mirror and to draw what you see how you see it. It's another thing entirely to understand the structure of bones and attachment, bulge, and flow of muscles and fat.
Or as Matthew Bernier put it to me (and I'm paraphrasing): while the artist in you is busy thinking about composition, flow, and dynamics, you can halve the burden by giving a part of the work to another part of your brain.
Or in neurology terms: by studying art from a logical perspective, you're freeing up some of the blood flow in the visual cortex (at the back of the brain) and the right side of your brain (which manages all your spatial problems) and diverting it to the more logical, organized, word and language driven left hemisphere.
And in computer terms: While the brain is a parallel processor type organism (processing multiple tasks at once), it struggles when memory gets backed up trying to use the same sectors at the same time. So by using two strips of memory instead of one, you process the same amount of work in half the time. Yeay for multi-DIMM SDRAM!
So anyway, while I've been between toning gigs, I'm working on the next two lessons in my print series, and using that as an excuse to research all the things I'm terrible at.
Like legs.
And feet.
And anatomy in general.
Okay. Not TERRIBLE at. I've seen worse. FAR worse. But I've taken a realistic approach to anatomy lately, and it seems the more realistic I get, the easier it is to tell mistakes, forms feel off or stiff, or the body language isn't QUITE what I may have had in mind. My original style in "Steady Beat", heavily influenced by manga, was much more forgiving to mistakes in general anatomy. It was a style based on outlines, not structure. Not so much now. At this point in my knowledge, I should have no excuses for not working on a pose until it's correct.
Anyway, so I thought I'd post a sample of a pose I spent most of last night and this after noon on. The body is like a series of weight and balances, pulleys and levers, a pendulum ticking back and forth, held in delicate balance. When you pull at one end, EVERYTHING shifts. Understanding the mechanisms of this complicated machine we call a body helps to understand how.
From my third lesson in the series, "The Halftone Cell": (click on the image for an animated gif)
Even now, I can see some corrections that still need to be made (mainly in the right knee and ankle), but you can see how gradually everything shifted, how things as little as minor adjustments of feet, legs, hips, back, shoulders, etc, can throw a picture in an entirely different direction. And how knowing the muscles of the legs actually helped as it twisted in different directions. I have a problem with feet, so I busted out my anatomy book and studied the bones of the feet. That would be the difference between the third and the last one. For the rest, notice how the hips, butt, and the back shifts and moves, even the most miniscule amounts and how that affects the balance of the rest of the pose.
So. STUDY YOUR ANATOMY. No matter how frustrating it is. There were several times I threw up my hands in savage annoyance, and I may have walked away for a bit, but I always went back. And I still am! These are just the pencils (bluelines, actually, but converted to grayscale for ease of reading and loading), so there will be even more corrections when I go in and ink. I don't like to get TOO tight when I pencil, so this is enough.
Sometimes it's tempting to just draw a poofy fifties skirt and be done with the worst part of my anatomy learning, but that's just lazy. Don't skimp on yourself!
-----------------Life Side Notes----------------
Lordy is it hot in Texas right now. I normally like the heat, but this is just too much. Global warming is le suck.
To compensate, I've started composting. IN goes all my organic matter (coffee grounds, orange peel, chicken bones, egg shells, etc ... I'm not sure about paper though because that has glue in it) and out comes yummy mulch for my potted plants to gobble up! To speed up the process, I've been putting everything in a blender in water and pureeing. Heehee. The less wait the better! And my little three-year old mango tree agrees! |
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| Achy wrist syndrome |
[Jun. 27th, 2009|11:56 am] |
Le fun. I apparently have a mild, temporary form of carpal tunnel. Woo! (not) So typing via hunt-n-peck with my left hand.
I've had mild pains in the past when I've had to work intensely for a deadline, but usually by the time they'd get actually painful, I'd be done and ready to rest, so the pain would be gone in about half a day (I heal fast). But this time I still had several pages left to tone and finished those up even with the pain and boy . . . baaaaaad idea. Next time my body says "stop", I really should listen. Thankfully, le Homme's mother is a physical therapist, and she recommended a hard brace, ibuprofen, and alternating hot and cold compresses.
Apparently carpal tunnel is caused by the muscles squeezing around the major nerve in the wrist, and the best thing to do is thin the blood (who'd have thought a doctor's recommendation for drinking?) and keeping the hand in an at-rest position. I'm also drinking lots of milk since calcium is both a muscle and a nerve relaxant (useful for falling asleep and those pesky monthly cramps). There's something else it does to the nerves by coating the receptors, but I can't remember what specifically.
At least I'm about 98% certain what caused it: for some reason, working with a tablet/wacom causes a lot more injury than pen and paper. At least for me, that is. It's still better than a mouse, but I only ever seem to get these pains when using my wacom intensely. And this time, I had it propped up on my knees instead of flat like I normally do, and I think that exacerbated it. Inking with a pen instead of a brush seems to do it somewhat too, but a lot of that is how small I ink with a pen and how close I get to the paper, utilizing to many repetitive, minute movements. Posture seems to affect it too, but I've got that pretty much under control.
Guess I just need to set my wacom back in its old position, then...
And I have another deadline Thursday, what I was hoping to be my last deadline for toning this book. ;_; I was also hoping to ink my next print entry, but that's going to have to wait until deadline is complete and pain has passed. Poo.
In the meantime, using only my left hand is NOT easy. Though it's at least becoming somewhat more proficient. |
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| Printing in Black & White - Lesson 1 of 20 |
[Jun. 19th, 2009|08:00 am] |
Printing in black & white is quite possibly one of the least understood processes in printing today. In a culture that has come to celebrate color, black and white has settled into the historic background, a lost and nearly forgotten art. Why print simple black and white when you can print in strawberry reds, sunshine yellows, and prussian blues? Why would ANYBODY?
Because many people actually prefer black and white. But more importantly: because of cost.
Printing in color is expensive. Not only is the paper stock more expensive (often requiring a varnish and a fine paper with a minimum of dot gain bleached to brightest perfection) but so are color inks. There's CMYK process printing, Hexachrome, and an endless supply of Pantone color choices from which to choose. Which is great for covers and prints, but what about all those interior pages? Coloring is time consuming. Color is expensive. If you don't have your monitor calibrated, color never comes out the same in print.
So before you even begin any comic, you have to ask yourself: does your work look any better with color, or is your muse painted in black and white halftones??
Many comics look as good if not better in black and white than they do in color. A poor color job can take away all that hard work you spent on layouts and inks. Black and white creates a starkness of mood that is difficult to catch in the colored page. Black and white is easier to manipulate, to edit, and often easier to experiment with and correct.
But boy do people not know how to prepare or print it! Most people understand that color is printed at a standard of 300-450 dpi, but few understand the why, therefore creating complications when it comes to printing black and white line art or greyscale tones. Black and white production causes endless frustrations for those unfamiliar with its specific techniques. In order to tame this beast, you must first understand how it functions.
The purpose of this series of tutorials is to take you through the print production process so that you better understand how to scan, prepare files, and send them off to be printed ... or print them yourself. Topics will include:
Intro to Printing
LPI
The Halftone Cell
Resolution
Dot Gain
RIP
Converting to 1 Bit Black & White
File Sizes & Types
Creating Tones From Scratch
Converting Flat Grays to Halftones
Variable Tones & Dithering
Printing
Choosing (and Using) a Laser Printer
Outsourcing
Offset Lithography & Flexographic Printing
Choosing a Paper
Paper Resources
Along with a number of subcategories, numbering 20 lessons total (so far). Tutorials will include a combination of written essays and comics, but mostly comics. When I began to realize how lengthy this lesson was becoming, mon homme suggested serializing and turning it into individual comics, giving me the opportunity to experiment with different, tools, inks, techniques, papers, etc. So, for the first introductory comic, I started as basic as you can get: good ol' gel pen on 100% cotton paper. The two did NOT combine (the pen didn't like the toothiness of the paper), so there was an awful lot of cleanup in photoshop afterwards, but hopefully ....
You can still enjoy: :)
Updates will be when I can afford the time. Thankfully, they're at least all already written. :) This first one is, by far, the SHORTEST and the SIMPLEST. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Next Lesson: Explaining LPI and its uses |
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| My Canon printer finally croaked and... |
[Jun. 15th, 2009|01:13 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  ecstatic | ] |
I got a laser priiiiiiiiinter!
Already tested it out, and it's made of fantastic. I'll be reporting on why when this article is finally done. Good lordy it's long, though...
Now to find a burial place for my faithful ol' Canon i550. That was one long-lived inkjet, but right after purchasing new ink, my print head finally croaked, and instead of getting a replacement I realized I would far rather get a nice, new shiny laser printer.
Woot! Woot! Though I won't be able to go out for coffee for two months to make up for the cost, this made my day filled with SCORE. |
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| Doing research for a b/w printing tutorial and ... |
[Jun. 14th, 2009|01:36 pm] |
PRINT IS BEAUTIFUL.
I pray that our world never goes fully digital. Digital has it's uses. But to die completely? I think my heart would break to pieces and never fully recover.
Also, while I'm here: How many of you generally prefer color comics over black and white or prefer b/w to color? And why? Do you make exceptions?
I'm a black and white comics gal because I like how it intensifies mood, but occasionally I'm hit over the head with a beautifully illustrated, presented, and printed color job. The Flight anthologies are one of these because they present a wide variety of innovative coloring styles and excellent print quality. I've also been enjoying the coloring palette in Hellboy lately ... it just wouldn't be the same in b/w.
But otherwise, black and white all the way, baby. |
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| Friends, MoCCA, & My Love Affair With New York |
[Jun. 12th, 2009|01:51 pm] |
Austin feels eerily lethargic after my week long stay in New York City / Brooklyn. The streets appear almost vacant, devoid of the tap of swiftly moving feet, the rustle of groceries and bags bouncing off backs, thighs, and legs. The only white noise is the sweet trill of bird song, and the occasional call of fire sirens or the rev of an engine punctuates the air in sharp, almost alarming staccato.
New York was amazing.
I've always felt a strange draw to the city, the people, the energy it exudes in the form of steam from sidewalk grates. But it wasn't until this trip that I could honestly see myself living there.
An extended stay in Brooklyn and being shown the less touristy parts of the city probably helped. Being made to feel welcome and comfortable cemented it.
Honestly, MOCCA was a terrifying affair. Day 1, Saturday, I stood in overwhelmed paralysis as hordes of cartoonists and fans and editors and random passers-by streamed past me. People I'd never heard of. Art and stories I'd never know even existed. I went both days and yet feel as though I missed a good half of it. With tables spread out with comics arranged in pretty candy-colored displays, I felt like a child uncertain of whether to get the gobstoppers, the red string licorice, sugar coated gummy worms, blueberry or watermellon jellybeans, picking a few measly items from rows and rows of chocolate. How do you choose? How CAN you? Even now, I can think about twenty different artists I wish I'd gone back for. There was a whole wall of European artists that I wish I'd bought a comic from every single one of them. Who cares that they were all in languages I couldn't understand?
But most frightening of all, however, was feeling like I didn't know anybody. There were names and art I recognized, but it's vastly different seeing people face-to-face, and nine times out of ten, when I'd recognize someone's work and want to talk to them, but the urge to run and hide would come on even stronger and I'd flee before so much as eye contact was made, comic pages fluttering in startled wake (or a few dollars for kidnapped minis).
Day 2, Sunday, however, was far more comfortable. It was warm in the convention center, but being used to Texas, I think I may have taken it far better than a good 95% of the room did. (Has the North East ever heard of central A/C?) Also ... Hope Larson!
<3!
I think that's really what broke the icy paralysis for me. Knowing that somebody who's work I adore and admire and respect recognized me. Over Pho and mineral water, we talked comics, agents, and life in general. Hope, you're quite possibly one of the nicest people in comics. Thank you for making me feel the rest of that day like I was walking on air.
The rest of Sunday went smoothly. I finally actually SPOKE to people, ran into Amy (Reeder Hadley), and we sat in a corner and talked about our future plans while convention-goers determinedly ambled by. But now I have to make at least one mini comic and print and sell it for next MoCCA (if it's still affordable by then, that is) while working on my other projects.
If I have one gripe about MoCCA, it was that a number of the mini comics seemed overpriced and poorly printed. Coming from a rabidly fanatical print background, I KNOW these comics can be printed more cheaply and at a higher quality. I was listening to an Alec Longstreth interview on Indy Spinner Rack a few weeks ago, and he covers a good portion of how to get your prices down and quality up, but really ... I remember having to get black and white copies when I was in NYC for NYCC several years ago and the cost just about made me choke. I can get a good laser printer that gets me a full 8.5" x 11" page at $.013 to $.03 a page depending on ink coverage, and considering most of these mini comics were about a fourth that size, many of them should NOT have been above $1-$2. When you go that small, that's when it becomes an impulse buy rather than an investment.
It seriously makes me think about how to expand my in-home print shop, however. I already have both a rigged black and cyan-only wide format printer (for printing blue lines) and an awesome wide format scanner I'm always happy to let friends use (compensation for lots of ink use helps), but I've been comparing monochrome laser printers, guillotine paper cutters, and binders for small jobs. The mini comics industry is fascinating, but really .... so few people seem to know how to handle black and white so that their printed work comes out as beautiful as the originals. And in the quantity many of these get sold, it's basically POD. But at FAR less cost.
Some day I would actually like a digital press in my garage, but ah ... SOMEDAY. Also need to find a paper supplier when I move. I would like to find a good, light, thick, zero dot gain newsprint (YES! They exist! And they're AWESOME.) and the Austin Area has always been sadly devoid of paper distributors. I'm hoping the North East is better.
1200 dpi or greater for black and white, people! (clutches head) AH!
ANYway.
The rest of my stay was spent visiting beautiful locations in Brooklyn (Prospect Park, Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, random street wandering), invading artists studios (Dean would have to be my second favorite person in comics, and another reason I was made to feel incredibly welcome in NYC.), and raiding Jim Hanley's, the Strand, and DC Comic's book shelves. I easily spent four hours at Jim Hanley's (I just about melted into a puddle of goey goodness upon ten minutes into browsing their store), and I could have spent another four at the Strand if the store hadn't been closing. The had Marjane Satrapi books I'd never even HEARD of. And DC Comics was basically wandering around, meeting other editors, battling with production over appropriate DPI for black and white comics
1200 OR GREATER
and talking with my editor about my future plans. Honestly, I felt a little weird about it. I have no aspirations to work outside the role of toner on any DC titles. It's a nice comfy little job I got here. But I felt like I should have. The indifference was a little foreign to me, and I'm hoping I didn't put my editor off. It's "Butler, PA" that has my attention for the next few years, and that's where it's going to stay. Just let me keep my toning job, and I'm happy as a peach. But I've a few things to get together in order to ensure I also keep this job and the next few weeks are going to be crazy busy getting this last run of tones in and done.
And last but certainly not least: I also visited Kinokuniya. Where I got THIS.
Which leads into a strange tale of fate which has sealed the deal on my move to New York:
So, you know what the second biggest exciting thing about visiting New York was?
It was that little brush pen.
I LIKE brush. (OHGODYESYESYES!) But carrying a brush plus ink plus brush cleaner, etc around and deal with the whole mess (and occasionally have ink spill all over my back pack) was quickly becoming a headache. Enter the Pentel Pocket Brush. (and similar) Austin has craptastic art supply stores. I can't even find decent paper (fudge! THAT'S what I forgot to get!) nonetheless a single pocket brush that isn't one of those terrible fabric-type tips.
Enter Kinokuniya. The one store I visit every. single. visit to New York. Apparently they have nice, good prices on their pocket brushes, and I WANTED ONE. And I GOT one.
Only.
Oh god.
(sniff) My heart stops just thinking about it...
One day after buying it ...
(sob)
I LOST IT.
Yes. Yes. Tragic. I swore and cursed, and mon homme was there to hear me rabidly muttering the "f" word under my breath every few seconds (yes, I mean "fudge") in full-blown uncontrollable Tourettes style. And no, no, none of the children on the train could hear.
I searched high and low. I emptied my backpack, repacked it, and emptied it again. Backtracked to the Pho restaurant I'd taken it out at. I got down on all fours and searched under tables, chairs, around floors, and in all my pockets, until finally giving it up for lost. I used to be pretty bad about misplacing things, so I'm pretty proud of the fact that I take care of my art supplies. This misplacement was a direct affront to my art-supply care taking abilities, and I was angry at myself.
Fast forward to Monday. Lunch with le homme and his friend and companion commicker, Hillary Florido. Ramen. Chocolate (!!!!). And a train ride later, we're back at Kinokuniya so that I can replace my pen. We're wandering down the aisles and I tell Hillary why were there--that I was a bad art supply mother and lost my pen--when her eyes light up and she exclaims: "Oh! Is THIS yours?"
MY PEN!
Which HER friend, Ada (also wonderful to talk to and I'm looking forward to meeting again when I move) found, asked if it was hers, which Hillary happened to pocket (because random free art supplies are rock!), which she happened to put in her bag, which happened to be the same bag she brought with her to lunch a day later with le homme and I, which may not have been returned if she hadn't happened to change her mind and come with us to Kinokuniya instead of going back home.
FATE. I was MADE to have this pen. MWAHAHAHAH.
XD
Now go buy some of Hillary's comics while I let my new pentel pocket brush make sweet love to a blank page.
NOMNOMNOM
I <3 New York. I <3 my pen.
Now to go start emailing people who were potentially looking for roommates and to thank everybody for being so incredibly nice. The Indy comics community is made of LOVE.
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Btw: Sorry for the lack of photos or anything. But my camera finally died. ;_; But I want to get something like this before I leave so I'll have plenty to post about the move and after. |
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| Back in Austin. |
[Jun. 11th, 2009|09:02 pm] |
Just got back from NYC, and I've a pile of comics on my bed that looks like I robbed a comic book store.
More on my week later. For now. SLEEP. |
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| Mmmmm. Chocolate Malt! |
[Jun. 2nd, 2009|06:16 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Johnny Cash - "Ballad of a Teenage Queen" | ] |
"Butler, PA" progress: Book outlined (gotta chop it down from the 800-so pages it currently resides at). Prologue laid out. First chapter scripted and half of it thumbnailed. Meditating on exactly how I want to start the next chapter.
NERVOUS about heading to NYC tomorrow. Programming all the new numbers I have into my cell phone right now and will hopefully be hitting people up for coffee and chat. But I'm really just hanging low for this convention. The idea of being able to enjoy a convention with absolutely no motives to either sell my books or seek out work (I'm pretty dang happy with what I've got going on with DC and my personal project right now), is actually becoming more appealing by the day. Typically, by this point before a convention, I'd be freaking out, trying to get things prepared to either sell or present for a panel. But this time, I'm going as an observer and a fan. May even go by my real name instead of my nomme de plume, because I sorta don't WANT to be a professional right now. I just want to watch and observe and see this part of the industry I've never experienced before and just watch other people at their passion.
And speaking of passion ... sometimes it's nice not to have passion. Like this toning gig with DC. It's creative and interesting and pays enough to squeak by without having to work my fingers off every month, but it's also something that while I love the story itself (Ha! Not telling what!), I may feel physically drained after working five days straight, sixteen hours a day, I don't feel emotionally or creatively drained.
Quite the opposite actually. Having a steady deadline with a week in between to do my own thing (like study or work on "Butler, PA") is actually making me more creative and productive. I missed having a deadline, and having a bi-weekly deadline is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. I tried, desperately, to get Tokyopop to break my deadlines down into smaller, more frequent chunks, and they refused (gave me some bullsh*t line about it being too "difficult" for them, ie, too much extra work). But, I work better this way. And maybe "Steady Beat" would have actually come out faster if they'd paid in two weeks instead of four and paid out smaller, more frequent payments with tighter deadlines.
Plus, I'm a procrastinator. I ALWAYS put things off until the very last minute I possibly can. I'm doing it with my toning gig. But it's manageable this way because it's only two weeks worth of work squished into five days, whereas with "Steady Beat", it was more like three months of work squished into a few weeks. I actually got my first two gray hairs working on book 2 of "Steady Beat".
And in spite of my procrastination, I ALWAYS get things in on time (except when my publisher decides to make my books web only, screw a bunch of other creators, and I protest by intentionally not finishing), but it's a heck of a lot less stressful and draining to approach a deadline knowing you have a much shorter stack or work to get done.
And honestly, I actually get my best work done when I'm rushed. You could give me two weeks or two months to get the same amount of work done, and I'll hit the deadline to the HOUR either way. It just happens that the longer I have, the more I overanalyze the work and take longer focusing on elements that are all too often best left alone.
So, in a way, this steady, constant stream of deadlines is ... relaxing! While being invigorating for my other work at the same time. If only "Steady Beat" had been scheduled this way. But Tokyopop rarely listened to the better judgement of their creators. And while DC keeps missending my checks to my old address (oops), it actually doesn't bother me because everything else is so great. And they're frequent enough that I'm never in annoyed, desperate straights by the time my parents can drop them off. It's nice not to be panicked, starving, and completely destitute for once.
Mmmm. And I just got to the cherry at the bottom of my chocolate malt. YUM!
Oh! And go read this week's entry over at Comic Tools. They've got videos from Quentin freakin' BLAKE this week, and it's made of all sorts of awesome. For those of you unfamiliar with the name (or recognize it only vaguely), that's the guy who illustrated all the Roald Dahl books, and the guy is incredible. He's quite possibly one of my favorite illustrators EVAR. |
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| Currently on the desk: |
[May. 30th, 2009|02:18 pm] |
Thumbnails / rough layouts for "Butler, PA".
Back when my hair was short, blonde, and looked a bit like a q-tip. |
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| The Life of an Artist: |
[May. 24th, 2009|11:36 am] |
Yup. That's about it.
Except most people I know don't say that they're a great artist. Even if they are! Then again, it's the delusional ones that are the happiest, right? While the rest of us beat ourselves over the head over what terrible artists we are.
And $450 IN RENT? Holy cow! I've never had rent that cheap! Except in BFE, Pennsylvania. But even in Austin, I've never paid below $650.
But, you know, in spite of whatever you might think of this guy's personality, it's true that you have to make sacrifices to pursue your dreams. The tight regimen of bills and food and supplies and typically only having enough left over at the end of the month for a palm-sized cherry pie or a cheap GN? I think we can all relate to that.
-------
Man you people are harsh. We've all been overconfident at some point and time and interviews don't always come when we're creating our most interesting work, so slack off a bit, will ya? |
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| HAIRCUT. |
[May. 21st, 2009|04:30 am] |
Hurray! Just finished toning another set of pages for DC like a bat out of hell (typically I draw and play for nine days and then tie myself to my desk for five without eating or breathing) and yeay! That means tomorrow I'll finally have time to get a haircut. Woo. It's been over a year since my last one, so I figure I'm due. And having it down to my lower back (if I tilt my head enough, it touches my butt) is a liiiiittle too long for those sweltering Texas summers. It hasn't even been that hot, and already I feel like I'm walking around wearing a wool cape. -_-; Doesn't help my hair is insanely freakin' thick.
On the creativity front, when I'm not toning or sweating in the heat, I'm sketching, drawing, writing, and thumbnailing/layouts like crazy. Got the first theoretical chapter to "Butler, PA" scripted and mostly laid out, and I've finally come up with the first few pages I want to make to set the mood, especially since it contrasts so sharply with the first chapter it leads into. "Hi! I hate myself!" to "Hi! Everybody loooooves me!" (this is actually looking BACKWARDS, not forward. Now, I tolerate myself, lol. :D ) Mmmmmm. Angst. I may not even use this chapter, but I've decided for this book to go ahead and put everything down and then cut later.
Ah. But my wrist hurts from all this toning, so that means I need to NOT draw or write or type or do anything with my hands other than deposit my checks and knock up (oh so nice) clients for payments. And then hopefully, once the wrist has a chance to rest a bit, then it's the mad rush to get everything together before I head out of town for a week.
I am SO happy I'm not exhibiting, though. Otherwise I'd just be S.O.L. I WROTE several short stories and thumbnailed them, but I always lose interest past that stage because I'd rather be working on intentional pieces rather than practice pieces. It's not because I can't finish things, it's because I like to finish more important things. (to me)
Oh, and I still have one last commission to finish. Dar. For once, I actually just forgot rather than putting it off. -_-;
I love having deadlines again. :) |
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| Experiments in Brush & Pen |
[May. 10th, 2009|03:11 pm] |
No, I haven't taken up demon worship, nor is this a morbid attempt to scare off readers. But I have drawn tons of craptastic art over the past few weeks and thought I'd share a few things.
Because there's nudity involved, and I'd hate to see you all get fired from your jobs for my sketchy practice attempts, follow me behind the cut for more, both art and exposition ...
( Read more... ) |
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| Arting for the day |
[May. 8th, 2009|01:19 pm] |
Arty break day! Woohoo! I've been trapped in my house for two weeks while I toned like a banshee, but I've also been busy artsing, including going to life drawing and using a brush to sketch instead of pencil or pen (I want a pentel pocket brush because dipping a brush every ten seconds is so not conducive to quick drawing). Hopefully I'll be able to scan a few things in later tonight since it's the first night I haven't felt completely brain numb and just wanting to crawl into bed and chat with le garçon about what it means to be a dork/nerd/geek/etc. Because we're all sort of dorks in one way or another. Some of us just learn to hide it better under a patina of cool normalcy.
Also started the script for "Butler, PA" ... a GN that's been working in my brain since 2003 but I hadn't the time or space or sanity to work on until recently. It's . . . intensely emotional writing this story. I start sobbing like a baby every new scene because it dredges up so many unhappy memories I worked so hard to forget. Writing life pieces is emotionally nerve-wracking, especially when they cover traumatic events that resonate almost a decade after they occurred. Abuse is not a happy subject, but the story is also oddly, darkly humorous with a constant tone of hope, change, and forgiveness threaded throughout.
So this is probably what I'm going to be working on for the next several years because it's probably the only piece in me that actually needs to get out and why I've been working so hard at improving my writing style and my approach to arting. So don't expect anything spectacular from me other than essays and scribbly art and a few short stories until then. |
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| Toning Queeeeeeen.... |
[Apr. 30th, 2009|12:58 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sleep deprived | ] |
Zooooooooooooooooooooombieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...
Just turned in another set of tones and off to take a shower and do some ART today. Hurrah! But I'm afraid that there's gonna be little else here for a while. Getting a few things together for MOCCA, but really focused now on mostly making money and saving up for the move in October. So I'll continue to post practice art here while I can and random neurotic speculations, but don't expect much (unless the internet blows up, and I'm inspired to write an essay) until I've saved enough to feel safe about renting a truck and paying for my first half year's rent.
And off we go.
Chugga, chugga, chugga.
But I'll be back. |
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| What is Normal? |
[Apr. 28th, 2009|09:36 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  contemplative | ] |
I sometimes wonder if "normal" people are actually in the minority. ADD, ADHD, OCD, Austim, Tourettes, etc. We ALL got somethin'. And that just makes us well ... kinda neat and unique. We should celebrate these supposed "disorders" rather than fearing them.
I directly attribute my own ability to soak up new techniques and implement them within a few tries to the obsessiveness of OCD and the weird hyper focus possible with ADD. Of course, I gotta have a visual first. I have to SEE it. Just talking about it doesn't really do much for me. But once it's there, it's burned into the back of my brain with fire.
What a boring world if people were "normal".
So what've you got that makes you interesting? |
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| Still not sure why people are blowing this out of proportion |
[Apr. 26th, 2009|11:02 am] |
I've been keeping an eye on the supposed "pandemic" (rolls eyes) of Swine Flu people are ranting on about in the news, mainly because I live in Texas which borders Mexico, because San Antonio is an hour away, and also because I've been sick. Though with breakfast in my stomach, I'll consider myself fully recovered. No more headaches, aches, pains, cough, etc.
For anybody who may be concerned, first take a look at the number of VERIFIED cases in the US: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/investigation.htm
And then take a really good look at this: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/
The first graph in that last one is how many people come down with the usual flu in a season (lasting from October to May) in the US. A type is the deadliest. B type the usual mundane. The only thing that's different about this Swine Flu is that it's unique. It hasn't caused any deaths in the US, and like in most cases of flu, if you drink lots of (healthy) liquids (such as water and orange juice), get plenty of rest, go to the hospital at the FIRST sign of difficult breathing or excessive vomiting, you'll live. The reason most people die is because they don't go in for care when they need it, and they either dehydrate or drown in the fluids in their lungs. My little brother has had pneumonia twice and my whole family is prone to respiratory problems and we've all survived.
So totally ... just lighten up. Wash your hands. Get lots of vitamin C (I took 2000 mg yesterday and the day before which is probably why I recovered in two days instead of the usual week). And don't freak out, because the more you stress, the more susceptible you are to illness and a serious case of the placebo sniffles. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 25th, 2009|09:45 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sick | ] |
Ugh. Flu. But not throwing up and not dying at least. But just about everything else... Light in my eyes is like icicles through the eyeballs and straight to the back of the brain. Muscle-achey. Neck feels like it's on a creaky hinge. Dizzy when I stand up (which unfortunately, I have to do to go to the bathroom, though I guess I could crawl). And any staccato noise feels makes my head echo like a gong. I blame the sniffly/coughing/OBVIOUSLYsickman at Quack's the other day who didn't think to STAY THE F* HOME. Whyyyyyy do people persist on going out when they're sick?
And yet, somehow, still have enough strength at least to tone and only pass out every few hours! Woohoo! |
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| Artses . . . not. |
[Apr. 20th, 2009|11:24 pm] |
Rawr. Well, I won't be posting any coffee-stained art today because I have a deadline on Thursday. In fact, all my deadlines are on Thursdays. Why not just move my happy art day to Friday instead?
Glad you all agree! ;D |
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| Publishing Comics - Niche or Mass Market? |
[Apr. 20th, 2009|04:08 pm] |
The Beat linked to an article today in the New York Times about xkcd creator, Randall Munroe, publishing his infamous comic strip in dead tree format . . . and doing it not through a traditional publisher or put in traditional book stores but rather (semi) self published through a niche outlet, and using an entirely word-of-mouth marketing tool. The Beat brings up this excellent point: "He’s either yet another in a long line or naive creators who don’t want to look at numbers, or the prophet of a new way of thinking that isn’t ground down by a system that obviously isn’t working any more."
Personally, I'm not a fan of the strip, but I still think this is an excellent example of someone actually knowing who their audience is while being incredibly in tune with exactly where to find them. He knows that it's a very specific (if incredibly large) niche that follows his work and that they're easiest to be reached online rather than through the brick and mortar of book and comic stores. By following the logic of serving his fans best where they already exist, he cuts out the middlemen, a huge portion of the work, makes a larger cut of the profit, and he doesn't have to worry about returns. Because sure he may sell hundreds of thousands of copies into Barnes & Noble based off of internet popularity alone, but what happens when the returns start pouring in as too often happens? Humor just doesn't sell well in book stores, his brand of humor is accessible only to a very specific group, and well . . . stick figures. There's not a lot going on to make it jump off the shelves to people not already intentionally looking for it. And then they're most likely going to buy it online, aren't they?
And then there's this strange habit many publishers have of using the internet as a sort of litmus test for what will and won't work in the mass market, and as we've seen time and time again, it just. doesn't. work. (Snakes on a Plane, anybody?) I sometimes think there's this whole world of people who don't use the internet and then a world of people who use the internet and the internet only, and there's almost a total disconnect. Just because something does well online doesn't mean anyone can automatically assume it's going to do well in the ah . . . "analog" world.
Okay, maybe there's some crossover, but how do we determine where that crossover begins and where it ends? And what do you believe are some of the criteria for determining when something is more appropriate for the mass market or better served by a niche audience? Is it something that should be based on "intuition"? Is it something that can be measured and analyzed and weighed? Or is popular culture simply too complex for anything other than the human brain to even begin to comprehend? |
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