Tag Archives: time

Dragon Comics 113

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I shall return to my studio forthwith, but first, let me take a selfie.

I shall return to my studio forthwith, but first, let me take a selfie.

There’s absolutely zero balance because selling yourself is a full time job and if you put enough effort into the process to make a difference, you’re left without time or creative energy to achieve your primary objective. Or maybe I just spend too much time on the Internet. I can’t dispute the fact that I’m getting more traffic than ever, mostly from Reddit (but obviously getting Reddit traffic boosts your reputation with Facebook and Google) but I’m spending less and less time producing content…ah…I mean, making art. Dragon Comics are great but they don’t really move me forward from a creative standpoint. They’re more of a standby.

Well, tomorrow I’ll start on my Halloween bulletin board. That should cheer me up and possibly even inspire me. Plus, high quality content.

I also have to turn in a listicle and 11 book reviews by tomorrow night. I’m sure I’ll have time to accomplish all of that in between making lunch for The Man and hanging out with the Misseses Kitty.

Tropical Mandala

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Feel the salt breeze in your mind.

Feel the salt breeze in your mind.

This is, of course, a flowery-type mandala in soft shades of pink, blue, and green. It’s totally wild and not interested in your rigid ideals of symmetry. It probably smells narcotic. Insects hurl themselves into its fragrant depths.

I’m still working on my big project; clearly, it’s going to take a lot longer than I anticipated. Hopefully it ends up looking something like what’s in my head. Maybe one day in the future I’ll have the ability to focus on my work for more than a couple hours a day, because I have way more projects going on than I’m capable of paying attention to. It’s taken me 3 days to get to the place I probably would have gotten in 3 hours in the past.

Hopefully I can get in 2 more good hours today.

World’s Latest Boyfriend

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I'll see you when you get there, if you ever get there.

I’ll see you when you get there, if you ever get there.

The Man and I belong to a rather thrilling social club, comprising a diverse group of interesting folks of various ages, backgrounds, and walks of life, but in the last 6 months, between typical small group dynamics and people with upwardly mobile careers, we lost a huge chunk of our membership. It was determined that the rest of us should submit names of potential new members, and after a few months of discussion, a half dozen people were invited to a final meet-up to determine whether they would fit well with the existing group dynamic and to assess their interest in joining a social club.

It was the first time in quite a while that everyone RSVPd yes to the meet-up, which was cool, and after a couple hours of mingling, we gathered formally to introduce ourselves. One woman, after identifying herself, mentioned that she had the world’s latest boyfriend, which struck me as particularly hilarious. I don’t know how she felt about it. In fact, although I’d known this woman for over 2 years, I wasn’t sure I even remembered her boyfriend ever showing up at a meeting. (Later on in the evening I found myself standing next to him–he must have arrived eventually–and became extremely confused as to who he was, and how there could be anyone at this small private gathering I didn’t know.)

Anyway, I decided to create a “World’s Latest Boyfriend” T-shirt, although, to my mind, any person who actually buys a shirt like this is probably going to be single in the next 6 months. I guess there are some guys who would think it was funny, although to me it’s pretty passive-aggressive. Well, it’s a little funny, at least, and I drew it, and here it is. You can buy “World’s Latest Boyfriend” on an ever-expanding variety of fine products in my RedBubble shop.

Reaching

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Everyone needs a little hand once in a while.

Everyone needs a little hand once in a while.

There seems to be a consensus among a certain group of artists that the measure of your ability can be found in the ease with which you draw realistic looking human hands. Drawing the comic has smoothed this skill over for me. (Yeah, I know the characters in the comic only have 4 fingers. But still.) Hands never seemed that great of a challenge to me–it’s face that give me trouble–and now my brain knows how to visualize the reproduce a variety of hand positions. If I can look at my own hand, or someone else’s hand, or a photo of a hand, then it always comes out right.

This is my left hand, which I did in digital paint as a tiny image a few weeks back. It took only a few minutes. Then I blew it up and smoothed it out just now, which only took another few minutes. Of course, I could have messed with it for 4 hours and made it look even more realistic. I probably could have messed with it for 18 hours and made it look like a some kind of uncanny volar valley, something that looked almost, but not quite, like a photograph. Wherein lies my problem: given enough time, I can draw anything. But then time becomes an issue. In 4 hours I could draw one perfect hand. Or one imperfect comic.

Lately life has been overwhelming and my brain doesn’t seem interested in drawing, or anything at all. It’ll probably pass. But producing new stuff seems just out of reach right now. I do have an article about censorship coming out today on Panels, but the link won’t be up for a few more hours, so I’ll post it later. There’s half a comics script on my desk, and with a little effort it could be a real comic by tomorrow.