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05/14/08
All I can say is "much better."
I've been in a lot of pain this week, and throwing up pretty consistantly. It's practically part of my bedtime ritual to hang out beside the toilet for twenty minutes before turning in. My abdominal wall is loosening to make room for the ever-growing baby. If that doesn't hurt enough, my organs are feeling awful crowded. My stomach muscles can't even muster a decent heaving, making the act of puking prolonged and highly uncomfortable. I can't move suddenly, open windows, or pick up anything heavier than ten pounds for fear of tearing my abdominal muscles. Whee.
Furthermore, I'm hopping on a train to Maryland on the 20th to attend my brother's college graduation. This'll keep me engaged for a week at least.
In light of all this, please don't be too disappointed if I don't manage to get page 8 up next week. I'll do my absolute best, honest.
Or, if you're so inclined, you can harrange me in person this Sunday in Manchester, NH. At the last minute, Luth'rai and I have decided to attend the Granite State Comicon again. If you're in the area, feel free to stop by. We'll have a table and sell-ables. And we'll be hanging out with the guy who does Atomic Robo. Whoo!
...I guess now's the time to fess up that I have seen Iron Man. Twice in the past week, actually. This is saying quite a bit. I like comics, but I tend to hate American-made comic books. Especially the superhero ones. No offense to Jack Kirby, but I dislike the over-the-top Marvel art style. I dislike the nine-heads tall and ultra-masculinization (c'mon, even Marvel women have extra-manly faces). I dislike the total lack of facial expressions (there are, like, three per comic. On three different character varieties). And despite all the various claims readers make of "depth" and "character development," it always seems infantile at best. Am I supposed to be impressed at rudimentary characterization? Wow, this is better than what you find in first grade beginner books? Isn't that selling out to comics not being a true artform?
So why, exactly, am I seeing all these comic book movies? Not sure, really. I've liked some of them (Spiderman 1 and 2 and TMNT)...loved a couple, even (V for Vendetta and 300). But I was not enamored by Batman Begins, I wanted my money back from Fantastic Four, and...why did I subject myself to Ghost Rider, again? ...I think it had something to do with Nick Cage and Rawhide. Anyway. Iron Man was not a comic I was exposed to when I was younger, unlike Spiderman and Batman and Exman...X-men, sorry. So I can't say anything to the comic. But this movie is ending up on my shelf. It's simply an exceptional piece of filmwork. Maybe not a new all-time fav like V, but it ranks up there with Pirates of the Caribbean for enjoyability and rewatchability. And sweet ensemble work and movie magic. So, highly recommended. Get the soundtrack too.
05/07/08
You might laugh. In fact, go ahead, and you'll be the one with the last laugh. This page pretty much accurately represents how I felt when Luth'rai handed me the "completed" pencils of page 7. The potato is a metaphor. It is a metaphor for "what the hell is this?" Which is what I thought as I stared at what had previously been pretty good artwork if I do say so myself. For the past two years, my artistry has been developing, strengthening, deepening. Over the past year, and especially this past chapter, this "collaboration" business has been the most difficult obsticle to keeping regular weekly updates. And when I saw this page, the reason finally dawned on me: Luth'rai does not understand my artistic vision. Perhaps she never has. Hell, she can't even follow basic instructions. I mean they are walking through a tunnel. One ****ing tunnel, in one ****ing direction! How ****ing hard can that be?! I carefully describe the angles and lay things out in a thumbnail when I give these pages to her, but no! She listens intently, says she understands, and draws whateverthehell she wants! Regardless of whether it meshes with the mood and energy of the page or not! It's like she can't read my mind! Misunderstood by my own coartist, the shame! I cannot work like this. It's demeening and harmful to my delicate artistic soul. I cannot go on.
....Okay, in all seriousness: DO NOT WORRY. WE ARE NOT BREAKING UP OR QUITTING. But we are still trying to figure out how to work together. It's an ongoing, refining process. We've got something going for awhile, but then we're both developing our styles and subconsciously changing what we're doing and how we're doing it. And every now and then, it utterly smacks us in the face just how much our wires have crossed. So, as much as we hate to postpone the next scene another week, we're going to have to. Pages 8, 9, and 10 are architecturally intensive, and we're still trying to sort out page 7. One tunnel, people, and it showed us how much we've been fudging for the past few pages. We've got some ideas as to how to restreamline how we do these pages so that we can get back into a coloring swing, and hopefully back into a weekly swing. Yes, I know we've been working on this for the better part of the year. And I'm sorry, but we've got to do this, and it's going to take some time. I expect that we'll resume weekly updates in August...mostly because I happen to know that the scene that starts on page 14 will be easier to draw. Actually, that'll be three scenes in a row with consistant, interior settings. None of this walking around a bustling city business. Ha-cha.
In related news, my husband and I recieved our "economic stimulus check" from the U.S. government. $600 that we did not previously have. Ha-cha X 2. I've used my portion of it (in addition to preordering Gunnerkrigg Court: Orientation) to get myself a drafting table. I am very excited, as this will be the first drafting table I have ever owned. All the pages you see here are a product of me hunched over a clipboard, usually on the floor. Seeing as I'm about 14 weeks pregnant with stretching pains in my lower belly (not to mention random dizzy spells), this has become an increasingly difficult way to work. My desk is...uhm, laptop friendly, but I'm too short to be able to hunch over it to draw. Our apartment is to small for a table, so we don't have one. The other nice thing about my drawing table is that it's a fold-away. And it comes with an adjustable stool. ^_^
Last piece of news: I was back to vomiting and fatigue this past week. Apparently, there's nothing to worry about, as both I and the baby are healthy. However, I have tendonitis in my left foot and right hip. This is apparently caused by hormones screwing with my ligaments combined with the sudden weight gain. I can't take anti-inflammatories to treat it because ibuprofen and such will mess with the bloodflow to the fetus. Whee. I hope the doctor is WRONG and I will NOT get tendonitis in my drawing wrist too (he thinks I may because I use it so much). So yes, on top of everything else, it will hurt to walk and sit up for the next month or two. I begin to understand why making babies was a reasonable sole vocation for women for so long.
Next week: Page 7. Week after: Page 8. If humanly (or griffon/dragonly) possible.
05/14/08
Panel 1 brought to you by Google SketchUp and WoW.
You will hear me extoll the virtues of SketchUp loud and long. However, the one thing I'm not too crazy about is the camera. Likely because I'm still learning to work with the program. After I got sick of getting stuck in the ceiling, I gave up and ran my warlock to the Magic Quarter in the Undercity to play around under the arches. It actually worked out pretty well.
Since last week, we've gone to see Iron Man twice. It's a cool movie. Like... I can't do it justice with any amount of conciseness. If you haven't seen it, you probably should. I mean, I wouldn't mind going to see it for a third time. My budget says otherwise, but my budget is not the boss of me. Why are movies so expensive? I thought they charged enough for food to make a tidy profit,let alone. Anyhow, it's a great cast, memorable dialogue, and put together very well. (The music is awesome, too.) And if my parents had named me, "Pepper Potts," I would have had a word or two to say to them by the time I was 12... They wouldn't have been happy words.
And speaking of awesome (albeit on a different scale), have you seen this? It's coolness in a bucket with a lightsaber-shaped handle. Watch. Enjoy. May the Force not be used against you in humorous ways.
What? Oh! The page? Right! I should talk about that. So the backgrounds for panels 2, 6 and 7 had to be redone. Working with Sly to plan the backgrounds for 6 and 7 took nearly as much time to do them, but hey, it resulted in backgrounds we could be more-or-less happy with. I think the thing that drives me nuts about perspective is that you can really tell when it's off. Makes sense, doesn't it? We live in a 3-dimensional world, don't we? The cool thing is that I'm learning something with each page... Hopefully I'll be able to put those things to work to improve. ....You'll probably hear that a lot.
And in other news, the cat ate my tablet cord. Arg. It'll be fixed, though. I'm sending it in to get repaired. C'est la vie.
05/07/08 Shhhhhhh....
I'm trying to remember why I thought that subjecting myself to this embarrassment was a good idea. It's perfectly-flipping-obvious I can't draw people, thankyouverymuch.
...The reason's not coming. Screw it. And after glancing over Sly's rant, I've got my own bone to pick:
"Collaboration." This is what wikipedia has to say about it:
Collaboration is a structured, recursive process where two or more people work together toward a common goal — typically an intellectual endeavor that is creative in nature — by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus.
Why, in the name of mycorrhizae, is the failure being dumped on me, eh? Yeah, Sly tries to give me pretty detailed descriptions of what she wants the backgrounds to look like - most of the time. But is it really my fault that she can't remember simple (and crucial) words like "horizontal??" I mean, really.
Might I also add that Sly sees a good number of these panels in progress -the time when it's easy to bloody redo the whole thing- and what? Can't interpret my multiple guidelines that are oh-so-not-carefully thrown down in a layered mess? Apparently not, because it's only after I hand her a "finished" page that I get the info that this wasn't what she wanted. At all. Times a billion. To the nth power, just for kicks. She doesn't even have to say anything. Heck, I don't even have to be looking at her to feel disappointment-vibes emenating from her. They darken the room like... like... dark, little disappointed things of emo! For the love of apple cider, I'm an empath. NOT a telepath. Get it right, sheesh. Oh, and I'll have you know that you can't use empathy on a piece of paper. I've tried, believe me.
---Ludicrously dramatic sham-rant over now. Please continue reading for things like truthfulness.---
...Though I'd like to point out that Sly has forgotten the word "horizontal," before. And yes, it resulted in redoing a panel a couple times. But I can't get on her case for it. Not with the number of things I've forgotten.
Anyhow, yeah. Collaboration is hard. Especially when you're combining the abilities of a gestural artist (does it by feel) and an illustrative artist (does it by ...uhm. Not-feel). The wires have been getting crossed more and more often lately. It's frustrating and disappointing for Sly, and frustrating^5 for me. Though last night I think we may have figured out a process to start cutting down on these problems. Now we just have to put it in action and see how it goes.
And yeah, I'm sorry our update-schedule has been suffering so much, but.... well... it's necessary.... Again. Because I know we've used this excuse before. This time, though, I think our methods of dealing with it will work- and Sly'll even learn about perspective. >^.-.^<
I'm currently tired and sore. It's a very important thing to s-t-r-e-t-c-h before physical activity- Remember that (I had fencing last night). My left knee is twinging, and somewhere in either my right knee or lower back is a pinched/compressed nerve (so the nurse tells me) that has resulted in a 4 or 5 square inch patch of numbness on my foot. It's been like that for 3 weeks, though I'm on anti-inflammatories for it now. The good news is that I'm not sick anymore. That cold I had wiped me solid for a complete week- it's been a good long while since I had a cold like that. ...I found I didn't miss them at all. For an entire week I was either at work or in bed playing WoW (because it was better than sleeping). And if I wasn't in either of those places, I was on my way from one to the other. And the only reason I was at work was because I'll get in trouble if I take another sick day between now and.... June? I forget. But whoever decided that hospital employees get 6 sick days/year was an idiot. I'd also like to mention that all my sick days were taken on the days when I only work 4 hours. *grumble grumble grumble*
See you guys next week! Promise.
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05/14/08
05/14/08