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...

Textures

There is one part of digital art that I've never really utilized as much as I could: textures. One reason for it is that, badly done, pictures can look really bad when textures aren't used right. And believe me, a lot of artists don't use textures well, so I'd always been a little turned off on using them, save for certain circumstances - making something look like it was done on old paper, for example, like in my Medan series.

Then, I started picking up ImagineFX Magazine, which is possibly the most helpful and inspiring digital art magazine I've ever had the pleasure of reading. A little on the pricey side, but well worth it. Anyways, one of the issues from a few months back had a walk-through on a steampunk piece that not only had an interesting way of shading, but proved that well done, an artist can use textures not have it look natural, like a part of the art rather than a photoshopped mess.

Of course, this led me to want to try it... which led to my second problem: finding royalty-free textures, preferably for free, without spending days scouring my home town with my digital camera in hand.

The solution came from a friend of mine who had no idea I'd even been considering doing this: CGTexture.com. A lovely database full of free-to-use textures and royalty-free photos, all perfect for the digital artist. All neatly organized, too. You do have to sign up for an account, but they have a free version. The only catch is that you may only download 15 MB within a 24 hour period, but considering the variety of file sizes available for each texture, I haven't even come close to reaching that limit.

Oh, and no using the textures for scrapbooking purposes. They're very clear on that.

Anyways, whether or not my texture experiment ever sees the light of the internet remains to be seen, but I won't get any better if I don't try, right? Right!

The Eleventh Doctor

Alright, so it's finally happened. The Eleventh Doctor Who has finally premiered in the US. *cue cheers and whistles* As of this past Saturday, we now have Matt Smith's version of the Doctor on TV, and as a dutiful little new series Whovian, I was right there, watching the recap and mythos special before the premiere and recording it all just in case something came up that required leaving the room.

So far, I have liked Doctors Nine and Ten, but here's a confession: when he first showed up, I did not care for Ten. I'd thoroughly enjoyed the darkness of Nine, and he was, in fact, my first Doctor, so that automatically earned him a special place in the SciFi Geek quarter of my heart. When Ten showed up, though, I felt the urge to headdesk. He was just so... cheerful. After Nine, it was a bit jarring. However, David Tennant settled into the role after a few episodes, and like a determined puppy, Ten eventually broke down my walls and became yet another beloved Doctor.

I'm keeping that initial resistance firmly in mind when it comes to Eleven. The whole food thing definitely threw me off, so perhaps not the best introduction, but by the end of the episode, I could see potential. There were some highly amusing moments, and he'll probably settle into his version of the Doctor in a few episodes. I'll be looking forward to that time.

See, the interesting thing about Doctor Who is that it's not like a soap opera, where a new actor takes over an established role and everybody pretends it's the same guy. Each new Doctor is expected to be his own person. It's the great thing about Time Lords being able to regenerate - no awkward attempts to play the role like the actor's predecessor. Same history, same core, different outward personality. It makes for some fantastic possibilities.

One of these days, I will attempt to subject myself to the earlier Doctors out of sheer curiosity, but for now, I'm just going to try to get used to Eleven and hope that glimmer of potential that showed up in his first episode turns into a character I can fully enjoy - or, at the very least, enjoy enough that I stop marveling over the way his hair doesn't actually look like it belongs on his head. It should be interesting, at the very least.

The Great Cleaning of 2010

Twice a year, my subdivision gives people an extra incentive to go on a major cleaning spree: an all pick-up trash day. The spring cleaning one was today, which means I spent a large chunk of my weekend - you guessed it - cleaning. The focus this time was on my room, namely clearing it out enough that one can actually walk from one side of the bed rather than climbing over it.

Mission: success! Cleared out plenty of junk, reorganized things into a more orderly fashion, and even sent a few bags of clothes off to Goodwill.

Of course, Spring Cleaning isn't quite finished yet. Up next is the Great Dusting of 2010, also known as the Culling of the Dustbunnies. It may require a mask - at the very least, open windows. The abnormality in space and time known as my closet will have to wait, I think, until the September all pick-up, lest its contents once again overwhelm my room and all adjoining spaces.

The Comic Process, Part II: The Lines

After the Thumbnail, it's time to put the actual page together. For you familiar with the Western comics way, it's the pencils and inks. Because there really isn't much of a difference in appearance between the two, I'm just going to show you the inked version:



As you can see, nice clean lines, dialogue bubbles in place, black shadows added... Basically, this is how the page looks before I export it into Photoshop for the shading. If this were a print comic, I'd do screen tones in Manga Studio, but since Strawberry Syrup is a webcomic, I prefer to work in solid grays, and I tend to find it easier to do in Photoshop.

That, and I resize and crop the pages a bit - much easier in Photoshop.

Anyways, pay special attention to the panel where Hunter's about to grab the shiny glowing doorknob. In the thumbnail, you'll notice that there were originally two panels there. I decided that I really only needed one. The emphasis is now on his hand, rather than the hand shot just being glossed over by the eye.

Next time: the finishing touches!

Insomnia

So every now and then, I go through periods where it takes me really long to fall asleep. It can last anywhere from a day or two to a week or two. I can be drop-dead tired... and I still don't fall asleep, which means still being awake at, oh, eight in the morning. Yeah, it doesn't exactly top my list of pleasant things. Tends to turn me into walking zombie. Depending on just how little sleep I've gotten, a cheerful bubbly yet none-too-bright zombie. Also have a tendency to ramble.

So I'm really kinda proud of myself for actually focusing long enough to get this week's page done, even if it was about as late as it could have been without being posted Thursday. Add to that, all the itty bitty issues that popped up with a new version of Manga Studio. Oh, nothing major, but everything from setting panel margin widths to exporting differences... definite test for someone with an insomnia-spurred attention deficiency. So definite feeling of victory there... even if I did completely forget to add the text to Dwayne's shirt.

Anyways. As far as the whole insomnia problem, we'll try the whole "little mental stimulation before bed" thing. Now, on to finishing this week's episode of Supernatural.