Ps238: The School for Metaprodigy

It's been awhile since I've really gotten into a webcomic (someone else's, anyway), but yesterday, I was cruising around that void in space-time known as TV Tropes, and I came across the trope page for lame superpowers. Hilarious stuff, there. Superheros with the power to change the color of things, summon pigeons, and even one poor soul saddled with the ability to remove his own arm and beat people with it.

In any case, there was a link there that led me to Aaron William's comic, Ps238, a fantastic webcomic about a secret public school (yeah, you read that right) devoted to the education of the children of superheros, magical beings, and kids who can tap into the cosmos. You can recognize who most of the superheros are based off of, but don't be fooled: this isn't just a spoof comic. Sure, there are plenty of inside jokes for the comic-savvy readers out there, but once it gets going, you've got a great cast of characters in a well-written storyline and some truly fantastic elements. I read through something like three years worth of comic in the past two days.

Fair warning: the first several pages are a series of "Public Service Announcements" and advertisements for the school. They may seem random, but they're used to introduce a few of the characters. The story picks up right after them. Had they gone on a few more, I probably would have stopped reading... and missed out on a great comic.

Very Cool Clouds

We've had some interesting weather lately. Lots of rain, lots of muggy heat (ugh), and lots of very cool clouds. Last night, I managed to snap a picture of these beauties:



I love skies like this and thought I'd share. Just about makes all the heat and humidity worth it. ^_^

Art Blog: James Gurney

On my list of Things That Inspire Me, the work of other artists is pretty darn near the top. The way they compose a scene, how they incorporate characters, how they create backgrounds and moods and so much more can all spur me on to try out a new technique in my own work or drive me to improve overall. And, of course, I have some sort of obsession looking at other artists' sketches and their processes, but from what I've seen, that's pretty common among art people.

In any case, one artist whose work has inspired me for years is James Gurney. Yep, the guy who does the Dinotopia books. I have a well-loved copy of Dinotopia: The World Beneath that I loved to flip through and study the paintings in. I recently discovered that he has done a lot more extensive work for everything from book covers to National Geographic illustrations.

Even better... he has a blog.

This guy posts pretty much every day (and occasionally, more than once!), and Gurney Journey is just bursting with tips, explanations, and inspirations for artists. If you're an art student or just want to improve your work, you seriously have to check this out. You never know what you'll learn.

Dionysus and Ampelus: An Exercise in Environments

Just over a month ago, I did a picture of my Dionysus character called Night Terrors. Dio does not have a happy history, being the god of madness (among other things). So when this image popped into my head while listening to some Linkin Park, I decided to go with it. Then, of course, I felt kinda bad for Dio, so I decided to make it up to him by drawing him during a happy time in his life, which resulted in this sketch:

Ampelus was a handsome young satyr boy/shepherd Dio fell in love with when he very young - his first love, in fact. The first time I read about him, the author had just said he was a shepherd boy, without mentioning the whole satyr part, so I'd tried to draw him as a human several times.

Yeah, that didn't work.

Then, as I was researching deeper into Dio last month, I discovered that there were a few more sources on Ampelus than when I originally looked into him yeeeears ago. Lo and behold, all of them said he was a handsome young satyr. Cue the lightbulb clicking on. However, my usual satyr didn't really fit him, either. So, I decided to go more the sileni route, giving him human legs with the ears and tails of a donkey - and, of course, the horns, since it's just not a satyr without a pair of horns.

Ampelus was all set and Dio looked happy; all I needed to do was figure out the background. I decided to try to make it look like a scene and not just a character portrait. I wanted them to be part of the environment, and not have it just be a backdrop. To accomplish this (or try to, anyway), I opted for a landscape, with the canvas wider than it was tall, and set about filling that in.

My version of Dio met Ampelus near Mt. Nysa, where Dio hid in goat-form among the nymphs from his stepmother, Hera. It needed to have the feeling of a secret place where lovers might meet, a tucked-away place where they could be alone, yet still beautiful and light and airy with a feeling of innocent love rather than deep passion. To me, that meant water: a pond or small lake with waterfalls. Add lots of flowers and make it late on a hazy day with the sunlight diffused, and that got the feeling I was going for.

However, I really wanted this place to feel alive. The flowers helped accomplish that, but it needed just a little more. It needed wildlife. In the classic texts, no one quite agreed where, exactly, Mt. Nysa was, other than somewhere in or around the Mediterranean, so I started researching what kinds of wildlife the islands in the Aegean had. I didn't want anything that would draw attention away from the happy couple, so I looked into reptiles and amphibians first. A frog and a turtle with a rather interesting shell pattern caught my eye, so I put them in.

After that, I needed some birds. The Grey Heron fit the bill, and wouldn't draw too much attention to itself as it stalked among the water lilies. As with the rest of the background, I tried for a more painterly look, with brushstrokes suggesting the details rather than drawing in every single leaf, petal, and feather. It's something I've been working on in my backgrounds for about a year now, and I think I'm finally getting the hang of it.

Check out the final product over in my devArt gallery.

The Return of Productivity!

Today was what I consider to be a productive day. I finally got over the slump in my story (still working on that NaNo story - it's now just shy of 77K!) and hit a part I'm really enjoying writing again. Occasionally, I hit a part in a story where it's just about torture to keep putting words on the page, either because I need to recharge or just because I'm not really interested in that part of the story right then. That would be what the last twenty pages before today's spree were.

A few of the NaNo emails have addressed this issue in the past, so I know it's not just me: somewhere in the middle of the first draft, the author wants to do anything besides keep writing. If the story could just magically finish itself, that would be great. I figure there are a few reasons behind it: boredom or a short attention span on the part of the author, it's a part the author just doesn't want to write, or that part just honestly is not that interesting.

In the case of the last one, that's a problem, because chances are good that your readers will feel the same way. At best, they'll skim along until things start getting good again. At worst, they'll put your book down and find a better one.

Approaches to fixing this vary. Some writers take a step back, do a little reworking, and fix the problem. Sometimes that works for me, but I have heard revision horror stories where a writer just keeps trying to fix the problem right then and there and ends up never moving forward. Personally, I'm a big believer in finishing the entire first draft before starting in on the revision cycle. This also means I keep a notebook or stack of Post-It Notes nearby so I can write down the big revision ideas to implement later. After all, chances are that I'll be doing multiple revisions anyway, no matter what I do to the story, but I can't actually revise until there's something to revise!

In other news, my hand has decided it's capable of drawing again, so I've gotten started on this week's Strawberry Syrup page. You have no idea how ecstatic this makes me.

deviantArt Version 7

Alright, so yesterday, I made my usual stop at deviantArt yesterday and had a mild panic attack. Things had changed. Now, I'm not adverse to change. Sure, I may resist it tooth and nail because I'm a stubborn creature of habit, but I can adapt and even grow to like the new changes. . . which is why I didn't instantly flee to my dA journal to declare Version 7 as some sort of demonic entity sorely in need of an exorcism during my "buh... wha?" phase yesterday.

Today, I've had some time to adjust and find where they put things, and... well, it's growing on me. Parts of it, anyway. And there are some nice features. For example:

• The ability to navigate through galleries and my devWatch with my keyboard's arrow keys.
• Having the comment bubble directly under the artist's comments.
• The artist's comments auto-expand when you scroll down.

Alas, there are also some problems. Most of them just strike me as annoyances that were likely incorporated to make the site more iPhone and iPad-friendly. For instance:

• The giant arrows to either side of a deviation. They just clutter up the page.
• The pop-up thumbnail navigation bar at the bottom of a browsing page. Irritating at best.
• The way full-size deviations load now, what with the pixels and the zoom and the augh.

However, there is one thing that irritates me above all else about Version 7: the small views of deviations. Thumbnails? Look great. Full versions? Pretty much look fine. But the small view? Tiny, jagged, pixelated pieces of crap.

Maybe it's meant to strongly encourage full view. I don't know, but I actually liked having a nice small view. Imagine you have an epic illustration of a sweeping landscape. In full view, perhaps you can scroll around this epic and marvel at all the tiny details and subtle nuances, but if it doesn't fit entirely on the screen, you can't get the full impact of that pic. In a decent-sized small view, like the ones dA used to have, you could see enough of the detail and the whole piece and fully appreciate it for the masterpiece it is.

Now? Not an option.

*sigh*

There seem to be a lot of people up in arms about Version 7. If they choose one thing to fix, though, I just hope it's that.

Surgery: Not Fun

Well, maybe it is for surgeons. I don't remember any of it, thanks to the blessing of anesthesia. Unfortunately, that blessing came with the not so great side effects that led to me camping out on the couch asleep or wishing I was asleep for most of last week. But at least it's over with now. All I'm gonna say about the surgery is that it was minor, relatively painless, and according to the surgeon went well, so that's a relief.

Now then, there is one other part of surgery that I'm not terribly fond of: IVs. In this case, after a few tries, the nurses opted for the back of my hand. My dominant hand. So that's a rather sore bruise at the moment, one that is making it pretty darn clear that I will not be drawing a comic page this week. Or anything else digitally. Which, of course, means my muse has suddenly woken up and gone, "Oh, hey! You know what would be really cool? How about drawing a (insert cool idea)? Or what about (another cool idea)? Wouldn't that be sweet?"

Oi.

Anyways, enough whining. Time for me to at least get back on posting schedule!

Nervous, Nervous, Nervous...

In case you didn't catch it from the title, I'm a touch nervous today. Have been for the past week or so. I'm scheduled for (minor) surgery tomorrow morning - bright and early. I've got to be there at 5:30am. At least there shouldn't be much of a wait...

Anyways, there won't be a comic this week. And now, back to being nervous...

Rough Week

Oi. Last week was a rough one. One dental appointment for fillings, one doctor appointment to send me to a specialist, one specialist appointment to tell me I need minor surgery. Lots of fun... -_-;;

I'm not sure if I'll be doing the comic this week. My brother has suggested that I see if anyone's interested in doing guest comics, which while it's kinda short notice for THIS week, I think I may ask for them for when I go on hiatus at the end of the chapter. It could be fun! (ya know, assuming anyone's interested in doing it)

Anyways, that's pretty much the update on why there weren't any posts last week. Wheeee...