Woot! New SS Page!

Yes, finally got a new page up for Strawberry Syrup! Had to get at least one up this month... I need to try and get a buffer up again. That way, next time I get sick or the artwork refuses to cooperate or Life in General demands my attention, the readers won't have to wait for things to sort things out.

I do love my readers, too. They've had to put up with a lot of skipped updates this year, and at least a few of them have stuck with me, so a big thank-you to them. ^_^

In any case, my plans for today include heading out to Borders to hunt down Volume 1 of 07-Ghost and see if I enjoy the manga as much as I did the anime. I'll be sure to let you know!

Meanwhile, my plans for New Year's Eve involve a Twilight Zone marathon and epic sketch page of doodling epicness. Ah, good times...

Finding New Anime

Once upon a time, I used to find my new anime through magazines like Animerica (back when it was monthly... assuming it even exists anymore) or by sifting through the Anipike. Yes, this was back in the days of VHS, before YouTube existed and manga cost a hefty $15.99 a volume - never mind the limited selection of that - when finding a good series was like playing the lottery. I'd hunt down a promising-looking title, my brother would head to Media Play to buy it, and we'd cross our fingers and hope it wouldn't end up on our Shelf of Shame.

These days, I have other ways of finding anime. First of all, there's all that lovely manga now available for under $10 a volume. Generally, I'll check out the first 20 pages or so in the store, then buy it if it's still got my attention, and if I like it, I'll start checking out the anime.

Lately, however, I've found two great series another way: browsing the fan art on devArt. Now, just because one of the artists I watch falls in love with a series doesn't mean I'll bother to look into it, but when five, six, or seven of my watched deviants seem to be obsessed with something, I'll give it a try. In the past year, I've noticed a lot of fan art for Katekyo Hitman Reborn! showing up in my watchbox. I'd seen the manga in Borders, but when the back said it was about a mafioso assassin baby trying to teach a hapless kid how to become the next head of the mafia family, I pretty much put it right back on the shelf and moved on.

But then, I started seeing more and more of the fan art, the characters seemed really cool, and lots of people seemed to love this series. Not all series that fans get all rabid about are great, mind you - I don't really get Axis Powers Hetalia, for example - but when you see that many people getting into a series, it's worth checking out. So, I decided to give KHR a second chance... and now I absolutely love it. Sure, there was a major lag when the author decided to spend so much time on a character I absolutely hated, but she's since moved on from her obsession with her own personal Scrappy, moving into a completely awesome story arc. Be forewarned: KHR starts out as an episodic little comedy, but there is, in fact, character development going on, and the real story kicks in around Volume 8. It's even better in the anime - they cut the character that nearly ruined the series for me out entirely.

Yesterday, however, I came across a single piece of fan art - one solitary little piece - and found it so intriguing that I just had to look into it more. What was so intriguing? A character's name. I just had to see the guy named Frau.

Enter my descent into 07-Ghost (Frau, by the way, would be the blond guy on the cover there). Since yesterday, I've watched the entire first season (subbed, even!) and am planning an expedition to the book store to hunt down the manga. There's action, great characters, beautiful artwork (in the anime, at least - haven't gotten my hands on the manga yet), and a story that kept me interested through 25 episodes. It's high on drama, but like all my favorite series, it's got enough humor in it to keep it from getting too heavy.

Right this second, there would be no better news to me than hearing that 07-Ghost is being dubbed by a good company with fantastic voice actors. That would be amazing, but for now, I'll settle for getting my hands on the manga.

No idea when I'll stumble across a new treasure, but that's part of what makes it fun - and besides, helps keep the cost down if it takes awhile between each new find. Life's sometimes considerate like that. :D

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope yours was spent with lots of love and cheer and all that good sentimental Hallmark stuff. Its heart is in the right place - family, good times, and the spirit of giving.

Mine was spent with the family, as well. Our major family tradition is having kielbasa and sauerkraut. Mm, kielbasa... This year with a pound cake for dessert, courtesy of Dad. Of course, it led to a minor oven fire, but some quick fire safety skills and a few scented candles and all was well.

No spotlight this week. Instead, just hoping your holidays went well, and for those of you who don't celebrate, hope you at least got some time off work or went to see a good movie with friends or something.

Happy Holidays!

It's Official...

I'm sick. Got the antibiotics today to prove it. Hopefully, they'll help. As a note for future reference: no matter how much they say it'll help your sore throat, DO NOT gargle salt water if your lips are at all chapped. Ow. ><;;

On the bright side, I did manage to get a Christmas pic up for Strawberry Syrup before getting hit with Strep or whatever it is. It's not the best pic I've ever done, but hopefully it's kinda cute. Last year, I did Little Sammy's Christmas memories... this year, it's Hunter's turn!

Meanwhile, I'm contenting myself with the Ghost Hunters marathon and Facebook quizzes. Addictive little suckers... although it was a personal blow to my pride to only get a 75% on the "Can You Tell Anime Guys From Girls?" *sighs* I used to be so much better at that.

As for the "Which Mythical Beast Are You?", I'm chalking that little result up to my current circumstances, particularly the "tormented existence, part of you wants to die" bit... but that'll pass as soon as the antibiotics do their job. On a side note, I happen to prefer the werewolves who AREN'T consumed by torment and woe-is-me attitudes, which is probably why I like the Mercy Thompson series so much. No, being a werewolf isn't all furry romps through the woods, but they deal with it and move on with their lives. Minimal "I AM A MONSTER!" angst.

Alright, crawling back into my lozenge and Tylenol-lined cave now...

2009 Summary Meme

As I was finally going through the massive pile of deviations stacking up in my devArt inbox, I stumbled across a new meme: the 2009 Summary Meme. I think I'm actually going to do this one. I mean, what better way to end the year than to sit back and take stock of everything you've done over the past 12 months?

It helps that for once, I had pretty decent artwork every single month. In fact, for the first couple months, I'm going to have a hard time picking. In March, for example, we had both The Centaur Kiraz and Attempt 02, my second attempt at drawing one of my DI characters in a realistic style (namely Astarte, who turned out rather fantastically). At the moment, I'm leaning more towards Astarte, but I am still hella proud of how Kiraz turned out, too. And let's not even get started on February...

Also as an end-of-year type thing, I'm working on a another doodle page, done on the old paper again. Why? Because that's how I started the year. It should be an interesting comparison, seeing how my style has changed over the year, assuming it has at all. Considering my so-called "style" seems to be in flux from one piece to another, it would be a miracle if it hasn't.

Here's a sneak preview from the doodle page:



Yeah, there's more than a few *ahem* character interaction exercises on this sheet. I've got about a week to finish coloring things in, which I will get right back to as soon as I get something done for Strawberry Syrup this week. It's Christmas - gotta do something!

The Fugue Had A Purpose

And apparently, that purpose was fighting off a cold.

This week, the old immune system is making a valiant effort to stave off the onslaught of Cold and Flu Season. Fortunately, it's doing a good enough job that I'm just feeling off rather than downright miserable, but off is enough to make doing a decent comic page the equivalent of running a marathon barefoot. I'm not much for running barefoot on asphalt, so no comic page again this week.

I do feel bad when I skip weeks. I really do. I know I have readers, and that they actually enjoy the comic. But the fact that I DO have readers makes me really not want to scribble out some piece of crap that should never see the light of cyberspace and make them suffer through that.

Some people would say any page is better than no page. I disagree.

This is why I need a buffer. I sense a New Year's resolution in the making, there.

Coming Out of the Fugue

Slowly but surely, I'm getting back to work here. Last night, I finally got back to work on my NaNo story. Yes, yes, I know, NaNo's long since over and I won, so what more is there to do?

Finish the story, that's what.

It's currently at 172 pages, double-spaced, and there's probably another hundred pages to go before I consider it a fully finished first draft. At this point, I'm thinking I'll just keep plowing through until I reach the end, then go back and sort out the the plot holes, contradictions, and time line issues in Draft #2, then do the fine-tuning in Drafts 3 and 4. I seem to work best in multiple drafts.

Now, let's see if I can get the comic to cooperate...

Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Brain Gone...

Eesh. I swear, this week, my brain hopped a flight to Tahiti and hasn't so much as sent a post card back.

It happens, from time to time. The old creative muse completely rebels, riles up the rest of the gray matter, and suddenly I've got a mutiny on my hands - or in my head, as the case may be. No matter how much I try to concentrate on what I need to do, Ye Olde Muse is bound and determined to fully immerse itself in frivolous fluff - sketches, doodles, writing that will never see the light of day...

It's a little like existing in a void where "out of sight, out of mind" is the going rule and if you don't keep a train of thought, it may well be gone forever. But for those things the Muse is interested in at the moment... well, when the Muse gets interested, it gets interested, and there's no room for negotiation. It's either draw or write it right now and get it out of my head, or suffer the consequences.

I like to call this a creative brain purge. Giving it a fancy name makes me feel like it actually serves a purpose... which it does. I guess it's the waking equivalent of dreaming for me. Dreaming, as my high school psych teacher fondly put it, is the same thing as flossing your brain. It gets out all the stuff wedged in the crevices, occasionally hurts a little, and leaves your brain better able to function when it's all said and done. These CBPs of mine seem to do the same thing, only since I don't do it every single night, they tend to show up out of the blue and dominate my life for a good week at a time. Forget continuing the story, doing a full finished picture, or turning out a post-worthy comic page: it's time for a CBP!

Which is why there is no comic page this week. No matter how hard I tried, the concentration just wasn't there. It's like trying to read a book while someone's pulling on your sleeve, going, "Hey! Hey! Hey! Look at that! Look over there! Hey!"

Yeah, not happening.

But, when it's over, I'll be able to concentrate again, and I might even have something to show for it. So, I am just going to ride it out and hope it's done by next week. Because really, I would like my brain back sometime before Christmas, thanks.

Top Distractions

Yep, life is distracting. It is very distracting. It doesn't even have to try very hard - just wiggle something shiny outside the window, and there goes my concentration! However, there are a few things that grab my attention more than others.

• The TV. If that's on, forget about writing! Whether it's Criminal Minds or HGTV or some SyFy movie (oh, how I love the cheesy bad SyFy flicks), it will just keep nibbling away at my concentration until I either have to put off writing or turn off the TV. Needless to say, TV stayed off for most of November.


• Facebook. Oh, Facebook and your many, many time-draining applications. It started with Pet Society, then spread to CafeVille and, most recently, FarmVille. The last two are particularly dangerous, as you have to check at certain time or else your food or crops will spoil or wither and die. I can't even say they're really all that GOOD of games, they're just addictive.


• RP Chat. Yep, I do some RP. Back in 2001 or so, I started a message board RPG dealing with mythology. Although the actual game is pretty thoroughly dead, the characters have lived on through AIM. While I am loathe to call this a distraction, as I do so love my characters, it does qualify.


• TV Tropes.com. Sweet Lord, this is the distraction of distractions. It is an endless maze of amusement and fascination and the ultimate time-sucking black hole for writers, lit majors, movie geeks, and anyone else with an interest in books or film. I am not kidding - this place is dangerous. You look at one entry, and suddenly you've got ten more opened in tabs to read through later, and each of those gives you three or four more, and before you know it, it's 5am and you're wondering where the hours went. I had no idea this place even existed until my brother revealed that someone had done a page for Strawberry Syrup.

So that's my list of top distractions. I'm sure there are more, but there's a shiny object demanding my attention!

December, December...

I've always liked the month of December. After years of an annual Christmas play and handbell choir in grade school and junior high, I've got a strong affinity for Christmas songs. Granted, I'm not one of those people who wants Jingle Bells blasting in the car from November to New Years, but I love them enough to devote an entire lens to My Favorite Christmas Songs. I also get to set up the family Dickens' Village, and the Christmas tree goes up around Thanksgiving so we can enjoy it all through December. All we really need now is snow.

This year has been pretty devoid of snow in my area. Scratch that - completely devoid of snow. I don't think we've had so much as a threat of the fluffy white stuff this year. Still, I was in the mood to do something cute and snow-related for about a month now, so I finally sat down and did it:

Kitsune Snow Day Light Shirts by ameyer64
View more Snow day T-Shirts

Yep. The Kitsune Snow Day. I occasionally do cute things like this - mostly when I have younger cousins sitting right next to me and demanding I show them how to draw something. Or just quietly sitting and watching my every move, which makes me acutely aware that they are under 10 years old and drawing hot guys is not appropriate. That would be how the animals for the Pink Ballerina Box came about.

The Kitsune Snow Day, however, was all for me. I had the image of two cute little foxes building a snowfox, and hey, I like foxes, so went ahead and indulged my "Awwwww so KYOOT!" side. Besides, doing more than one style is good for you, I hear.

This one was done entirely in Photoshop. No preliminary sketches this time!