Saturday Quickie

Just dropping by to let you know how that cat and his companion turned out.

I’m pretty happy with it, so far.

Peace, Love and Fluffy kittens y’all.

Stick With It

Sometimes, there’s a whole avalanche of reasons not to work on your book, painting, quilt, loop rug, or whatever else it is that you do. Maybe you didn’t sleep. I can relate to that one more than you realize. Maybe you’re depressed and just have the blahs. Maybe you’ve got cramps, or laundry to do, or dishes to wash, or the kids have worn you out to a frazzle. Maybe there are a whole lot of reasons I haven’t thought of.

It would be easy to set your project aside for the day. It’ll still be there tomorrow, right?

Yes, it probably will. But it’s too easy to get into a pattern of treating your project as if it’s disposable, unimportant, something you really don’t need to pay attention to today. And that, my friends, is how things don’t get done.

I’ve got paintings that I started before the house fire that still aren’t done. I’ve got a stack of quilts that aren’t finished yet. Well, I’ve got a good excuse for that one. My sewing machine took a dump and I need to get a new one. I mean, it can still sew a straight line, but free motion quilting is out the door. But I could still finish the quilts I planned to straight stitch quilt, but haven’t yet.

Lord knows I’ve got books stacked up on the back burner that reaches to the heavens, starting with the one about the cure for cancer.

Suffice it to say that I’ve got enough to keep me busy til kingdom come.

Right now, though, my focus is on the comic. That project was started years ago, suffered major setbacks, and still isn’t done. First, my external drive took a dump. Then two computers each took a dump on me. All three times, at least a year’s worth of work was lost forever. All I had left of it was screenshots that I’d taken to share with my bestie, my biggest cheerleader.

Well, I’ve taken the comic back up, and I’ve made it my priority above all else. The books, quilts and paintings will still be there, and they will get my attention. But this comes first.

I’m here to tell you, though, there are days I don’t want to deal with it. The queen of insomnia, there are days when I’m cruising on barely three hours of sleep, if that. I wake up with headaches, pain in my hand where they were supposed to release two trigger fingers but only made it worse, irritable guts, depression, and a general inability to give a shit about anything. I could very easily ignore the comic and set it aside for another day. If I’m honest, I’ve done that twice. Both days, I stayed in bed trying to catch up on sleep I hadn’t gotten for days.

But on days when I’m up and about, no matter how crappy I feel, I always make sure to sit down and work. If I don’t, if I start letting myself make excuses and procrastinate, I know that it’ll never get done. I know how lazy and apathetic I can get if I allow it.

I won’t allow it. Not about this project, or any of the others that follow it.  No matter how crappy I feel, I make sure to get some work done. It may not be my best work, but it’s work that I can build on tomorrow.

Today, for example, I wasn’t having any luck with pages 12 or 13, so I opened up page 15 and got busy. And I’m glad I did. I got a ton done. Almost the whole page. There’s a lot that still needs to be done on it. For example, this guy needs his sexy jungle chick companion to stand by him so that he can wrap his tail around her leg.

And she’ll be there tomorrow. Today, I’m happy with the figures I got done, including the cat. I’m finding out every day that I’m capable of doing more than I thought. But if I didn’t force myself to stick with it, I’d never know that.

That’s my advice today. Stick with it. Through thick and thin, through crappy days and moments of sheer genius, no matter what the day throws at you. Tough it out and finish what you started. Otherwise, you’ll never know what you’re capable of.

Get out there and have fun, kids.

Peace, Love, and fluffy kittens, y’all.

Take Breaks!

It’s a wonderful thing to be so dedicated to your work that you want to sit down (or stand up, if that’s how your work goes) and see a job through from start to finish. That’s the mark of a good work ethic.

But unless your job can be finished in a couple, maybe a few hours, you need to take a break. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

More than that, taking a break lets you come back with fresh eyes.

Today, I’ve been working since 7am, and it’s now after 10am. I could keep cruising through, but I’m going to take a break, get up, stretch my legs and maybe get a cup of coffee – decaf, sadly.

I’m also going to take about half an hour to go paint on some of those unfinished blocks that have been waiting patiently for my attention.

Those are quick, easy, and fun. Plust it gives me a more traditional (for me) outlet for my creative aspirations. I’m used to painting on blocks. It’s what I do. I’m probably going to start with the beach one, then the one with the dark red at the bottom. Those have both been finished in my head for a long time. The beach one needs some cats and a lighthouse. The red one is a bayou scene originally done by my Tall Guy, and translated to a block by me.

Working on this comic has been a labor of love for a long time, and I’m in the home stretch. Barring some catastrophe, I’ve got an end in sight. But comic art was never my forte. It was never my primary style of choice. I decided to do it, foolishly thinking that I could fake my way through it. I couldn’t. I had to learn the style, and am humbled by how much work really goes into it, and the amount of talent the REAL comic artists have.

I will never be as good as the heavy hitters, but I think I’m finding my way.

So to take a break and immerse myself in a more comfortably, more joyful style of art, albeit briefly, is refreshing.

So that’s my advice to you today. Whatever you’re working on, take a break. Get a snack. Take a quick stroll. Pet a cat. Take a deep breath. Do something joyful. Turn your face to the sun. Then get back to work. You’ll feel better for it, and your work will be the better for it. Go ahead. Give it a try.

You’re welcome.

Peace, love, and fluffy kittens, y’all!

Humbling Inspiration

A long time ago, I got it into my head that I could draw a comic book. I’m an artist, right?

Yeah. It’s not as easy as you think. There’s so much more to it than scribbling some lines on paper and calling it done. There’s an entire art to how a comic book is designed and put toghether, above and beyond the artwork that goes inside it.

Sure, I could draw some doodles on a piece of printer paper, have done exactly that many times, but there’s got to be an industry standard for doing the real thing, right? What do I draw on? What do I draw with?

Each page has to be composed like a piece of music. What part of the story does that page tell? What does each panel show, and how are those panels arranged on the page? What’s a margin? What’s a bleed?

To try to learn how the pros do it, I’ve watched endless hours of tutorials on YouTube and followed link after link to artist’s pages on the web, learned new terms like Bristol board – never heard of that before – and a whole host of other staples of the trade.

I learned that many artists draw in blue pencil on Bristol board because the lines erase easier after the inking is done, and don’t show up on scans. I learned that the ink comes first, before the color. Not the other way around.

I’ve learned TONS that I’ve been trying to put to good use, from the bricks-and-mortar basics to intangibles that there aren’t really words for. It’s one hell of a learning curve.

And then, just when I think I’m getting a grip on the process, I get a look at this guy’s work. James Raiz spent 7 months drawing every Star Wars character to date.

This is him standing in front of it, to give you a little scale:

This thing’s HUGE.

Here’s the colorized version.

What in the world am I doing, thinking that I could even begin to do work in this field when there’s talent like this out there? What the hell was I thinking? There’s no way in the world I can do work of that quality!

But when I watched a video he posted about the project, he even said himself that he was ready to quit, too.

But he stuck with it, and you can see the end product.

So, I can stick with it, too. I may not put out THAT quality of work, at least at first. Hell, HE had to start somewhere, too. They all did. I can’t expect my first project to be award-winning quality. Or my second, or third. If I do that many.

I may never be as good as he is. My little project may never amount to anything. But I will have done it. It will be mine, good, bad, or indifferent. I didn’t let it lick me, and I saw it through to the end.

So, that’s my lesson for the day. If you’ve got a project in mind, stick with it. It’s your concept. Nobody can take it away from you.

Have fun, kids.