Birthday today... turned 48. Not doing too hot but I'm hanging in there.
I suppose it's time to reflect on what I do all day (besides walking in circles talking to myself) and start making some goals for the rest of the year. I'll only talk about art here, because this is an art site, after all. Talking about personal matters doesn't make me feel better, anyway.
I just finished a milestone for a FOSS project, and it's about time I started putting my "new" drawing tablet to good use. I've found that sketching isn't much easier on the tablet than on paper, which is disappointing, but inking is WAY easier. With some more practice, I think I'll cope with making some sketches and stand-alone pictures with it. Comics and comic pages will likely still be done traditionally. I'm way overdue for upgrading my computer and moving away from my 25-year-old copy of Photoshop 5.5, but... I'm so behind on projects, it's probably a good idea for me to do some work with a familiar platform and save experimentation for later. With RAM/GPU/HD prices the way they are, I don't have much enthusiasm for building a new PC at the moment. The good news is I completely rebuilt my PC workspace and have a permanent mounting for my tablet, so I no longer have an excuse that my workspace is cluttered and it's too much trouble to set up my tablet.
First up, I wanna catch up on some funny stuff, including a few memes. Wac and Tawny are easy to draw and I can bang out some fun stuff quickly.
It's kinda sad how badly my comic book projects haven't materialized, but... not for artistic reasons. The first draft of the Tangle and Whisper comic didn't pan out because I didn't like the direction I took with the ending. I've since re-written the whole thing and now that I like it, it's time for me to start thumbnailing it, since it'll be a good, short practice run. I think it's likely I'll make some progress on that.
The Talia and Giraud comic book has been stuck in production hell for a while. I fully drew and refined 10 pages, ready for inking, and I was rather impressed with the work I've done. Perhaps I'll post them just for the hell of it. But then, I started to think about the story and I've decided to can the work I've done and start over. The first major problem was that I couldn't decide how severe Talia's mental illness really is, especially since she gets a bit violent as the story progresses, and I didn't want to present the image that people with mental illness are dangerous. I have to walk that line carefully. Also, I tried to limit the first comic to exactly 24 pages, and I realized too late that I was trying to fit too much stuff in there, so... the final issue will likely be 28-30 pages. I also didn't plan the text very well, as I'm used to adding text first and then drawing the art around it. Doing art first, and then adding word balloons is totally alien to me, and I made some major layout mistakes. Oh well. At least I did a trial run and learned a lot of stuff. When I redo everything, it'll look way better.
The BIG issue, though, is that I introduced a plot element as an excuse for Talia to be injured, and had no plan what to do with it later. Basically, some mysterious beasts would show up to attack Talia, and after Giraud saves her life, those beasts would never be addressed again. I hate it when writers do that. That made me feel very uncomfortable and lazy from a writer's standpoint. I have since figured everything out, and have a justifiable place in the story for the beasts and how it all ties into the IDW universe. Addressing this issue also helped define the full extent of Talia's powers and limitations, and have TONS of scenes and dialogue compiled, so all I really need to do is finalize my outline so I can fill out the blanks. Before I start on this, I want to work on the Tangle and Whisper comic and give Giraud a slight makeover, so... Talia's adventure will be on the back burner for a bit longer.
Just me being a lazy dumbass, as usual.
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18 Feb 2026 11:29 CET
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