Perhaps you guys noticed I got a bit silent for a while. Besides working to learn how to letter comics with some amount of skill (once I started looking at what I was doing, I kept wanting it better and better), I've had a number of little things going on that have kept my mind a bit bogged down for the last week or so.
1. School! <-- I stay in school part time to improve my craft.... This sememster I was taking Magic and Folk Religion (an Anthropology class that gave me TONS of ideas for future stories) and the Philosophy of Human Nature (around 13 different philosophies including Plato, Aristotle, Marx, Freud, Darwin, Sartre, Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Kant, the bible, etc...). Both were interesting classes to be sure, but with how distracted my mind has been working on comic books, a few things were delayed a bit too long and as a result I was working on six tests and a paper over the weekend and Monday for one class and then prepping for a make up test and a final for the other. The final for Human Nature was last night, so since I was focusing on the Anthro class through Monday, you can imagine my frantic study and prep fest.
2. Career Day <-- So, yesterday I went to my niece's 2nd grade class and talked all about comic books. I know it's not my day job and I'm only just starting to make money, but I do consider myself a freelance writer now. To a second grader, you can imagine how cool they think it is that I make comic books. I described some amount of the process, how things work in the internet age, how every subject you touch (in school) affects your ability to write AND draw, encouraged some kids who actually do draw (one was surprisingly good for his age ~ I wish I was drawing that well at 8). In the end, I passed out an accumulation of FCBD editions of some kids books I managed to score over the weekend (thanks to some stores, especially Invincible Ink in San Marcos for the help). Anyway, bottom line they thought it was really cool and I think the teacher appreciated that I didn't put the kids' heads in the clouds. I had fun with it, but I kept stressing the importance of education, but not to let it stop you from following your dreams (as in, start writing now and drawing now, but be sure to keep getting more education).
3. Small Press Idol Round 3 <-- Well, round 3 started on Sunday for Small Press Idol over at DimeStoreProductions.com. Arnie and my plan was to drop the pages in on Sunday and get the ball rolling, but life got in the way. As a result, I've spent days nailbiting, overthinking, and just generally stressing. Finally, last night, we send our three pages for Round 3 to Ian, who should post them this morning. I'll post again later with instructions on how to vote since things changed around a bit. Can't wait for everyone to see!!!
4. Lettering <-- As mentioned previously (and I showed some examples in a prior post), I'm trying to learn how to letter. It is SO much more challenging than I thought. Some people think it's just slapping letters on a page, but it's not so simple. There is an artform to it. I'm glad, though, that I DID decide to do it myself because I was able to split things up that logically needed splitting up based on the art, to add tension, or whatever. I learned how to make my own SFX, crop bubbles at panel borders, combine objects into one nice pretty object, filling, gradients, etc etc etc... Oh and NOT to use standard Windows fonts. ;) Special thanks to Cary Kelley (Fallen Justice and all around great guy) and Michael Nelson (The Associate) for being available over the last couple of weeks while I was learning to give me some tips, smack me around, or whatever it took to get such a nice result.
Anyway, I feel like garbage today, but I'm up, I'm motivated, and it's time to get to work!!!
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