Zori wanted me to link to a journal of hers about helping a kitty in need.

And so I did!

-P

Man, I just... I really want to get this room done.

I got a whole lot done over the Labor Day weekend (you know, the one where we're not supposed to work), but there's still a lot to do. Furniture still needs to be moved, trash still needs to be taken out, and all manner of filing and storing needs to be done.

Once I get everything set up, I can really tear ass into all these projects I've been putting off. That's really all this journal is, me getting excited to do these things until I can actually do them. It's kind of like Christmas, in a way.

I began the first stage of cleaning out my room today. I didn't get anything actually MOVED out, but I got a pretty decent start I think.

Oh yeah, I'm moving. Sort of. Part of setting up my grandmother in her new/old apartment (which is as much mention as that's getting here) was moving out all of the old guest bedroom stuff to put in there. Now we have an empty room (because it's been years since we've had any guests), so I'm going to use it as my new bedroom, and turn my current room into a studio. For drawing. I think I could be a bit more productive if I had a room exclusively for drawing and work.

It's going to take a lot of work to set up though. My mom is a teacher, and part of being a teacher is also being a complete and total packrat. Of course, that's one of the things I picked up from her. I hate throwing anything out, no matter how irrelevant it is because you just never know. So I've got literally years of things sitting around not doing anything because I just never know!

For example: For Christmas, I wanted to get a larger DVD shelf because my DVDs were starting to take up some serious real estate. My brother and sister-in-law got me a very nice, very large disc binder. They have one at their house, and they say it's really freed up a lot of room to have all their DVDs in a neat little binder. So I loaded up my DVDs into it. But I keep the cases, because they're so much fun to look at and a lot are designed really well. SEE?! IT'S LIKE A CURSE!!

I can't just THROW AWAY those Futurama season sets. They are like works of art unto themselves! And have you seen the case that Sliders comes in?! Holy crap!

But I really want to get down and dirty and get it all fixed up. Part of the reason I'm so excited about it is I want to use this opportunity to finally get into freelance illustration and comics and stuff. I figure a staff illustration job is a bit too high of a goal to reach for at the moment, but freelance stuff would probably be a bit easier to handle. At least I hope it is. A lot of people seem to have a good thing going with freelance illustration at the moment.

Doesn't hurt that they're a billion times more talented with exponentially more connections than me, but WHATEVER

I won't let that get me down. I've got a lot of plans for not just freelancing, but also self-publishing a bunch of projects I can't really seem to get off the ground at the moment. I also realize that having a separate studio isn't exactly an integral part of that and I could just start anytime I really wanted to, but dammit, a studio would make me feel professional! For once!

I'm really psyched for this, and I hope this is the point where I can get my illustration to really take off.

This is our new dog. Taken off my grandmother's hands because she can't even remember her name. The dog, I mean. So we're taking care of her now, and I've named her Sprocket, due to the resemblance of the dog with a similar name.

She's a terror sometimes. She tore up my sandals :( But right now she's asleep and not eating anything of mine so she's okay by me.

This is not a happy journal entry by any stretch of the imagination. I'm typing this journal for myself, because I have to take a gigantic mind-dump somewhere because if I don't, I'm probably going to have some kind of breakdown. And not the good disco kind, either. It's also a pretty long one, so I've stuck it behind a break. I don't want to clutter your friendpages with it.

( Read more... )

So like, um. My grandmother owns a little mobile house about two hours north of here on Lake Texoma. It's a nice place, I spent a lot of time there as a kid, and it's a really nice place to just unwind and not do anything for a whole weekend.

We don't go up there much anymore.

It kind of just fell out of use, really. As we get older, life becomes more busy, and you just don't really have the time to take small breaks like that anymore. It's a real shame. But the marina keeps a good eye on it, and lets us know whenever something happens. Like last week. We got a call that a storm had come through and knocked out power to half the trailers, and ours was one of them. So we think the best thing to do is to go up there and make sure nothing in the refrigerator has spoiled from the power being out. Then my mom remembers 'oh no, we're going to have to throw out the watermelon we bought'.

Yeah. The one they bought over two years ago.

I am fucking terrified of what that watermelon is going to look like when we go up there to take care of that refrigerator this weekend. Not that I was looking forward to losing a full day of drawing work in the first place, but I've seen what happens to strawberries after 3 weeks. I don't want to know what happens to a watermelon after 110. During a Texas summer. After a power outage. Holy shit.

In other news, I started working out at the gym today! Last week I signed up at the gym that's up the street from where I work and I'm planning on going there every day after work and exercise for a good 40 minutes or so until I'm a lean, mean love-makin' machine, aw yeah. I did like, 10 miles on an exerbike today! Seriously, chicks don't dig guys who are wider than they are tall.

So I dunno, we'll see. I'm ready to finally slim down for reals to make myself not only look good but feel good too. Haven't you read Cosmopolitan lately? Out-of-breath is SO out of season.

So I lifted an episode name from South Park for this one. I can't really think of a more appropriate one.

2 weeks ago, we had to take Bandit to the vet. He had fallen in the kitchen and just couldn't get up. It was finally time for him to be put down. He spent a good 15 years with us, and it was hard to say goodbye, in addition to not really knowing if we were doing the right thing. He was obviously in pain, but I still don't know if putting him down is the right thing to do. We're taught all our lives that killing people is wrong, and Bandit was more of a person than most people I know. I really hope the right choice was made.

On the way back, my mp3 player ran out of juice. I'd rather have the radio on than just stew in silence the whole ride back. I turned on the radio, and they played 'Time After Time'.

God damn you, KDMX 102.9, the best mix of the 80's, 90's and today.

A week from now we're planning on having my grandmother put into an assisted living place. At first she seemed okay about it, but then she was rather against it. Her short term memory is... not what it once was. At this point it's nearly irresponsible of us to let her live on her own, and the nurse we got to help us check up on her has said as much. We're making arrangements to have her move in next weekend, but I'm afraid it might not go well.

The kinda of an upside to this (if you can even call it that) is that we'll be moving out all of the furniture from the guest bedroom (that hasn't had a guest in it in seven years), so I'll be able to move some of my stuff into it and make an office for myself. It'll be nice to have some room to move around in, since this room is getting so horribly cramped.

Not that my fat ass is helping much. I've been on a diet for a good 4 months now, and I don't think I've been able to lose a single pound. I guess it's about time to switch to pure veggies and water in addition to the exercise and see if that helps any. Not just for myself. But maybe, finally get the chance to meet someone ... real. That'd be a nice change of pace.

There'd better be one hell of a high point after this valley, you hear me, life?!

Feh, Texas summers! I wouldn't mind them so much if our air conditioner worked properly. During any Texas summer you can expect the weather to at least get to 100 degrees for at least a week straight, and so here we are. Our A/C is either inadequate, or we have some serious circulation problems, because it can get nearly up to 90 degrees in here on those days. And when that happens, doing any kind of art is a lost cause, because I can't focus or get comfortable at all.

I think it might be the house though, since in the winter the inside temperature drops to about 45 and never gets warm enough. I'll probably have to buy a new space heater this year, too.

Today is one of the rare, RARE days where it's overcast out and the temperature inside is actually not too bad. So I'd better take advantage of it right now!

Oh yeah, I'm gonna be working on sketch cards today! I'm going to enjoy doing them too, because I want to do a whole set of Zatch Bell characters. That's such a fun series.

It's been 40 weeks since I posted a new journal. Now that Lent is over, I can start back up again :B

I really should keep up with this because sometimes things happen and I want to tell someone, but the two people I talk to on a regular basis online aren't always around to spill my guts out to. So I guess I'll start doing it here. Again.

...Except most of the times I don't really have anything interesting to talk about. Oh I know, I can whine about drawing!

When I took a break from Cantrip at the beginning of the year, I wanted to spend the time off practicing a lot, really improving my ability, so that when I picked the comic back up, I would be AMAZINGLY better, so much so that people would think we got a different artist. But instead I ended up playing Team Fortress 2 a lot ... So there goes that. I keep improving a bit by a bit, but there's still a lot I'm bad at drawing and I think I'm going to go back to school to take art lessons just to begin to be able to draw how I want to.

My diet hasn't been doing too well lately, so last week I cut soda out of my diet completely and began doing weight lifting exercises every night before bed. So far the only change is I'm sleepy all the time and my arms hurt. I guess that's an improvement?

In either case, the only way to get better is to keep working at it. I hope in another year I'll be a lot better than I am now. I can almost draw in public!

-P

Nestor the Webcomic launched with NO FANFARE! :D

I wanted to see how many people would flock to see my new project. Google Analytics says I get 7. Look out Penny Arcade, you're effin' goin' down.

In the meantime, I'm working on like, 3 other projects that're gonna be totally awesome. You just wait and see.

Yeah, yeah, it's my birthday, big whoop.

When I was a kid, birthdays were awesome. Like a mini-Christmas. Since then, it's just been another day out of the year. I don't like all the hubbub people make over a birthday, so I've taken to just not telling anyone about mine. Plus, I suck at remembering other peoples' birthdays... Eh.

Thanks to everyone who wished me one though, and I hope your birthdays are good too. Just in case I forget.

...and I will.

So, I'm back from Little Rock. Came back on Sunday, but I'm still trying to get over the whole trip. Sooooo tired. I don't think I've had a decent night's sleep in two weeks. But it's been fun so far. I'm totally sleeping all day Saturday.

You're probably all excited to see where I went, I bet. Check out the pics ( after this cut... )

Hey gang, whassup?

Remember a while back I got a new job, huh? It's been going pretty swell so far. They signed me on as part-time, but I've been pulling in nearly 40 hours each week since then, so I'll be able to afford stuff soon. Like getting a car tuneup. Or new glasses. And, dare I dream? An on-time payment of my student loans. Man, it'll be great.

A lot of my job is doing graphic design work on webpages and Flash projects, which means I get to sit in front of a computer and do things I've been doing for the past 3 years. Difference is, I get paid for it. The only real downside of it is, I don't get a whole lot of time to work on comics. Instead of finishing a page in one day, it'll take a few days, just so I get enough time to sleep and do other things that I want/need to do.

I'm still rocking the comics, though. Starting the week of August 25th, I'm finally getting ready to launch a new webcomic based on the Nestor stories I did for Radio Comix. More info can be found at nestorcomic.com. Also, Cantrip the Magic Rabbit is going to launch very soon, too. I swear. Thus spake Magog!

Next weekend, I'm going to get to go on a trip to Little Rock to visit Playtime Pizza, a company we've done website work for (and I've done artwork for! See if you can find it!), and it's going to be a lot of fun. It's been years since I've been on a road trip. And come on, they have blacklight pirate mini golf. That's worth the trip in and of itself.

I also got to visit another place we've done work for, Alley Cats. They had a neat banner out front. Guess why it's the most awesome banner you'll ever see:



Go on, guess.

Here's the outside of the place, if you're curious:



I've got more work coming up soon, and Nestor is gonna launch soon! Tell everyone, it'll be the best webcomic ever.

-P

So there I am, sitting at home feeling sorry for myself because I can't do nothin' right. Trying to bang out a comic that I don't really feel any kind of passion for simply because I think it'll help bring readers better than my last one, making no money, being a frog's hair away from completely broke, feeling creatively bankrupt and basically being a big ol' loser. When suddenly:

Phone call.

A local design company that I do freelance work has decided to hire me for a part time position working on web sites and general design work. Awesome.

I have less time to work on my comics now, but seriously? I love doing comics and all, but if I had to choose, I'd much rather be able to eat. A lot of people have this idea that you should do what makes you happy, regardless of how rich it makes you. I can see that, I really can. But even though comics makes me happy, I'm gonna be pretty miserable if I have to draw them hunched over a trash can lid behind Safeway. Besides, it's part time work. I can still do comics without any trouble. I don't have to choose.

The important thing that I learned from this? Have a backup plan. If I only did comics instead of learning design, I'd be a lot worse off now than I am. Back pats and 'good job!' from your peers is great. But it don't put food in your belly.

Like anyone who reads this hasn't realized that by now.

So I just finished my first (half) week of work helping a website get tweaked out and uploaded. Wanna see? Of course you do. I totally uploaded it myself. I did the "About" page too! But while I'm working on this job, I'm also working on getting my next webcomic up. What could it be, I wonder?( Find out after the Journal jump. )

Yesterday I posted the final page of Episode 9 from my comic, Lancaster the Ghost Detective, a comic that's taken up 5 years of my life, 700+ pieces of paper, innumerable sodas and tons of writes and re-writes.And with this page, and the epilogue that takes place in the following week, it'll be time to set Lancaster aside in favor of some much neglected other projects.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about it just yet. Maybe the idea just hasn't set in yet, since I still have the epilogue to do and the new site to put up, so that while the comic is still ending, the work on it continues.

I have a lot of reflections I'd like to make on the project, but I want to hold them for after the epilogue.

If you haven't read the comic yet, I'd love it if you could experience it now.

Tomorrow is A-Kon and I'm super-excited. I'm really looking forward to it, even though I'm still kinda of unprepared product-wise. Though I'm getting contrib copies of comics from doronjosama to sell and doing sketches, it just doesn't seem... enough, I suppose.

Earlier this week I registered http://lancaster-comic.com/, for the new Lancaster site to go up on. I still haven't got the design of the site built, so I'm still a ways off from finally putting it up, but it's coming soon. Keep an eye out for it!

( More after the cut! )

If you keep up with video game news like I do, then you're already (un)excited about the new Banjo-Kazooie game from Rare. Rare is a little video game development house based out of Twycross, England who was most famous for the Donkey Kong Country series of games on the Super Nintendo. The games that I've enjoyed most out of them has always been the Banjo-Kazooie games. Now they're (finally) making a third one, and I don't care what Dave says, it looks awesome, and I really hope this one pulls them out of the slump they've been in lately.

Anyway, on to my new obsession. Since Rare is bringing back Banjo-Kazooie, I decided to take out my copy of Viva Pinata, a game Rare made for the Xbox 360 early in its life, and the second game I bought for my 360. Because, well, because it was Rare, and it got some really good reviews. I played it a bit when I first got it, but then moved on to other games like Bioshock and Dead Rising, because that's what I wanted to play more, and I just never got back to Viva Pinata. Until now.

The basic premise of the game is you have a garden, and in that garden, you can have pinatas. The pinatas all look like different animals, like snails, horses, foxes, birds, etc, but they're all given extremely clever candy-based named, like Horstachio, Buzzlegum, or Fudgehog. These pinatas wander aorund your garden and you can do things like plant stuff for them to eat, build them homes to live in, have them romance with other pinatas to make baby pinatas, sell them, dress them up and generally take care of them. It's a very 'The Sims' type of game where you have to take care of the pinatas you like, keep away or tame 'sour' pinatas, attract new kinds of pinatas and keep your own pinatas from knocking the sweet out of each other.

It's been three days since I started, and I've already gone well past the 'play for 10 real time hours' "achievement". There's really not much to the game aside from taking care of pinatas and plants, but it's all just so gosh darned fun and charming, that I can't step away from it.

I keep switching around different kinds of pinatas I take care of to attract different ones, but the main pinatas in my garden are a family of Sherbats - Rufus, Shazbat and Lemmon (because he's yellow!), a Crowler named Snips and a Fourheads, a massive four headed serpent named Mykonos. His house is a Grecian temple, which is so unbelieveably awesome to look at. It even has a golden fleece!

I really, really like this game, probably way more than I should, but I just can't help it because it just makes me feel so good inside to play. And I think everyone should have something like this that makes them happy to do.

Also, the commercials for the game were above and beyond awesome:



Oh, I almost forgot - Do any of you guys know a way to get notified of people's journal updates? I figured getting a subscription to LJ would automatically give me alerts to when other people updated their journals, but apparantly I can only get notification on a maximum of two user journals at once. Halp!

Holy crap, two posts inside the same month! See, I told you I'd get better about posting more often!

My excursion at CAPE! went pretty good. Not ideal, but not as bad as I was thinking it would be. It's easy to crack under stress, and I think a lot of my worrying was because of all the stress beforehand. Stress makes stress; makes sense, I guess. You can read about my CAPE! exposure here, on the Scienteers site. It's less of a writeup and more of a big commercial for all the people I saw there selling things.



Before the event, they emailed all the guests and asked if we could bring something to the hourly raffle that theyheld all day, and I decided it was time to give up another Weaver. It's my understanding that it was one of the first prizes to go out and that a guy named Matt won it. I didn't get to meet him, but I hope he treats Dropstitch with care. That brings the number of Weavers that aren't being given away down to one. Just one Weaver left, so I'd better be extra vareful where it goes.

Richard Dominguez was there! Years upon years ago, my parents signed me up for a 'how to make comics' class taught by this dude, Mark Stokes, and on one of the classes, Richard Dominguez came in to teach us stuff. He didn't recognize me (and seriously, I wouldn't expect him to), and I didn't get the chance to talk to him, but that I recognized his work from so long ago really says something about what he does. Not sure what, though.

Jason Pearson was there too, selling Body Bags books. I'd always wanted to pick up an issue or two of that because it looked so over-the-top fun, but any of the books are bear-impossible to find, so I was kinda excited to see him there. His prices were outrageous though, and it stopped me from picking anything up because I had a small spending budget. Maybe I'll find them in a discount bin at Half Price Books somewhere.

After not having anything for sale at CAPE!, I decided that I should get something together to sell at A-Kon, maybe have a sketchbook or something printed up through Lulu to sell. About the time I started pulling together sketches to do, I got slammed by a huge pile of work that didn't leave me any free time to handle it, and then I got sick for a whole week after, where I got even less personal stuff done. Not a very good way to get things done.

There's still enough time to get something together, I think. Maybe a limited print or something. I've gotta work fast if I want to get it ready by next weekend, though. Eek, it's almost time!

I'm also excited that in the next few weeks, Lancaster the Ghost Detective will be ending. People end webcomics every day, but this will be a big milestone for me, because a lot of times I never finish anything I start. Even today still I start things and never see them through to the end. And to undertake something like a continuing story comic and stick it out through the very end is just a really big goal for myself. I learned a lot in the time I've been doing this comic, and though it will be sad when I finally end it, there's always something new to look forward to.

It's going to be a hectic two week push to get through A-Kon, but I'm psyched for it. Once A-kon is done and Lancaster is packed in, I can finally get through this humongous backlog of projects I've been putting off and get myself caught up finally. It's a summer full of work, and I say: Bring it on!

Good news, everyone!

My money troubles (for the time being) are over with. I got my paychecks barely by the skin of my teeth and got my car looked at. Luckily, and with a huge sigh of relief, the problem was the car battery went all pear shaped on me. All it took was a new battery installation and my car is running just fine again. Of course it needs a tune-up and inspection, but that's stuff that needed to be done anyway.

That means the ol' Infernal Combustion-tron 9000 is ready to go to CAPE! this weekend. Glad one of us is.

Originally, a friend and I were supposed to team up to go, but he had to bail due to a personal situation. Which is cool, I can totally understand (and relate), but now I'm left tackling CAPE! by myself. Quite literally. I don't know anyone who's going. I mean, there are people there whose names I know, but no one that *I* know. And being absurdly introverted (not to mention woefully underprepared), I'm stressing hardcore over tomorrow.

But hey, no pain no gain, right? I'm frightened, but it can also be a learning experience. And a pretty good opportunity too, since CAPE! is just over in Dallas, and the tables are free, so even if the entire experience is a bust, I'm not out a whole lot of money.

But I am hoping it'll be a great experience, and I would like to make a new friend or two.

Then I remember how cripplingly shy I am.

I must remember to charge my camera before I go.

You guys probably know how it is. You have a day, or a couple days or a week where everything little just decides to dogpile you. Where one thing that you could normally just shrug off and deal with without any problem and then just go right back on your merry way, right? But then they all just swarm you, and they won't go away.

Welcome to my week.

First of all, automobile troubles. My car won't start up at all, and I have no idea why. From the handful of people I've consulted (friends who aren't mechanics), the problem is either the battery or the alternator. Both are fairly inexpensive parts and easy to replace, and if there's something wrong, I hope it's that. I've already had to deal with cars that need $1,000 parts that need replacing, and I really don't want to have to deal with that again.

So hey, if it's really that inexpensive and easy to do, why not just have the car towed up the street to my trusted auto mechanic and have him whack with a wrench 'til it works? MONEY. I recently did a 3-week stint with a local graphics house that I usually get freelance work from, as well as a couple other odd jobs, but the problem is, they're really slow with the payment this time. They're sitting on about $1200 worth of invoices from me, but they can't pay me until they invoice the company that hired them to do the work in the first place. They usually have a really fast turnaround time regarding invoices though, which makes the length of time spent between my work and my payment (about three weeks, now) extra-frustrating.

Add to that, CAPE! is coming up this weekend, and this could be a good shot at making a bit more money, by selling sketches or commissions. Of course, I can't make it there if my car's broke, which means I would have to miss out on more potential work and networking as well. I do try to keep a bit of money squirreled away, so that if something does go wrong, I have a cushion, but not nearly enough to cover a substantial cost like getting a car fixed.

But, i do try to keep enough so that when my keyboard goes completely bonkers on me, I can go out and buy a new one. However, if the car doesn't work, then I have to wait for someone to give me a ride, which means that while I wait, I can't get ANY work done, because it's difficult to use a computer without a keyboard. And for some reason, everyone wants to charge $70-$100 for keyboards nowadays. I was lucky to find one on sale for $20(!), so I have to make do. Actually, it ended up being slightly better than my old one, the only real drawbacks are no volume knob and it's wired. Whatever, I'll take what I can get, and it really pissed me off because there was a whole evening of work shot because of it.

Now see, if I had spent all my savings getting my car fixed, I'd be royally screwed right now because I wouldn't have been able to afford a keyboard.

Not to mention the day before, Photoshop went south on me and I had to spend a whole day installing, uninstalling and re-installing it to get it to work, which shot down another whole day and put me even more behind schedule.

I also got another day and a half of work from the graphics place, which made me set aside all my personal projects even more. Work is great, yes, but getting paid is way better.

You add together this with all the frustrations of normal daily life and other little things that just go absolutely wrong at the worst possible times, and you've got one unhappy, stressed out Poinko. I've been trying to get a Sketchbook together to sell at CAPE! and A-Kon, but the way things are going, I just don't think I'll have the time to get it printed, much less get it together in time for CAPE!.

I definitely don't need to tell you guys this, but it's just been an absolutely horrible week, and I'm getting really bad headaches and stomach pains from it. I'm hoping this is a 'once a year' thing, and that by Thursday I'll be in a far better position. That position being having a working car, a finished, printed batch of sketchbooks and a weekend of CAPE! to look forward to.

Hope your weeks go better than mine has.

-P



Also, here's a little insight about me. It's pretty fairly spot on, for a 3 minute test.


My Personality

Neuroticism	95
Extraversion	11
Openness to Experience	22
Agreeableness	60
Conscientiousness	2

You don't usually get angry too easily but some things can annoy you, however you are sensitive about what others think of you. Your concern about rejection and ridicule cause you to feel shy and uncomfortable around others. You are easily embarrassed and often feel ashamed. Your fears that others will criticize or make fun of you are exaggerated and unrealistic, but your awkwardness and discomfort may make these fears a self-fulfilling prophecy. You tend not to talk much and prefer to let others control the activities of groups. You prefer dealing with either people or things rather than ideas. You regard intellectual exercises as a waste of your time. You do not like to claim that you are better than other people, and generally shy from talking yourself up, however you believe that a certain amount of deception in social relationships is necessary. You are guarded in new relationships and less willing to openly reveal the whole truth about yourself. You are a reasonably organized person and like to have a certain amount of routine in your life.

Take a Personality Test now or view the full Personality Report. The best Uggs

I just downloaded a free 10-day trial of WoW.

Now what?

SOMEONE MENTOR ME!