A few things going on. For starters, page 3 is overdue on Steamvolt, because I'm an intense procrastinator. Fortunately, this wasn't due to complete laziness, but from a combination of my neurotic need to finish up the Elf with the guns there, and a bit of a blockage on how to do a certain city-scape panel that's now been resolved.

On other random thoughts that have popped into my head, people who use Facebook or Twitter to spout their fringe political beliefs are, to put it mildly, raging shitheads.

Seriously. Facebook is just the place where a handful of your current friends and a whole lot of people you vaguely knew in high school can keep tabs on stuff in a creepy voyeuristic fashion; getting on your soapbox and linking all sorts of political stuff to acquaintances you haven't talked to in ten or fifteen years is an absolute indicator that you are, in fact, a clueless douchebag. No one wants to read about why you're a Republican/Democrat/Libertarian/Green/Whig/Anarchist/Schmuck. Keep it to yourself, please.

Other exciting things include the fact that this rather well proportioned Elf actually made my wife jealous, which I found odd and frankly god damn funny at the same time. Her exact quote was:

"Those tits look a little too good... what the hell have you been doing? Studying the things?? Who's tits have you been looking at?!?".

to which I replied:

Ok, first, I know my target audience, and second, I'm a rather average frustrated straight male. I've been studying breasts for nearly twenty years now. The only thing shocking about this is that you're shocked by it."

That shut her up, more or less ^___^

It's bee a while since I tried any comic type stuff, but it's high time I got off my ass and started doing something.

My first comic attempts were the goofy old Fundyville comic I did, which I've buried because, in retrospect, they were awful. Part of it is probably that I've mellowed a bit and I'm not as militantly irritated by religion and supernaturalism. They still piss me off, but there's really not a lot you can do about it, and raging against the retarded system doesn't do much but red line your blood pressure. I also figured out a big part that prevented me from going further with Fundyville was that I felt like a real douchebag every time I was making a page. Nothing is more annoying than a preacher, whether it's about religion (or the lack thereof), politics, or whatever pet topic someone has a hardon over.

Anyway, moving on, I've got some ideas for a comic that I think are cool, and I'm trying to live up to the idea that rather than sit and obsess over whether something sucks or not and trying to perfect everything, just go forward and get stuff done, and don't look back too hard. Looking back to hard leads to awful shit, like Han Solo firing second in those re-released star wars movie abortions that George Lucas screwed up. Don't be like George Lucas.

The comic is going to be called Steam Volt, and it's kind of a combination of Steam Punk, Tesla Punk, and Arcane punk. That feels like too many 'punks' in there, but that's the only way I can really describe it. There's some high fantasy elements in there with a little more tech than is traditional. Should be lots of action and destruction, and I'll put in a little fan service, because I'm ultimately a nerdy guy at heart, and I like explosions and hot comic broads with somewhat impractical and revealing clothing.

The robot there is a sample of the style I'm going for; just another sketch that went further than planned. I've started messing around with texture patterns on some of my recent stuff.

The date that the first page will be out will be June 1st, 2009. I'm aiming for a bi-weekly release schedule to begin with, just because I'm not sure I can make a more aggressive weekly schedule. If things go well, I'll ramp it up a bit. Over the next few weeks I'll have more teaser sketches and start working on some promotional stuff through deviant art and other venues.

Ok, that's enough for now, back to work!

My buddy Dave mentioned this bit of wicked coolness, and it needs to be shared, so here it is:

http://gizmodo.com/5231112/best-video-ive-seen-today-will-make-you-smile

Seriously, that is just too cool for words.

I think that I am now, officially, a technophile. I love gadgets and contraptions, and now I own a plethora of them. Got the laptop/tablet that I've been doing pretty much 100% of my art work and technical stuff on, and now I've even got an iPhone 3G, which is pretty badass, and I've run a jailbreak on it so I can use it as a wireless modem. I'm putzing around on facebook, got all sorts of tools and electronic devices, including things like infrared ranged thermometers and a custom modified paintball gun, and a lot of other nonsense I probably don't need, but I really enjoy having.

The real concern here is turning into a tool. People being into gadgets is fine, but if they do nothing but talk about them all the time it gets annoying as hell. Of course, anyone who's excessively into any topic is generally a tool. You gotta keep yourself somewhat rounded and not be all up in people's grill about whatever your pet hobby or interest is. Wine snobs, golf guys, lawn guys, car guys, work-out guys, gamers, pet owners, etc, etc... they can all turn into tools in a matter of seconds.

The other concern is people who are so into gadgets that they'll buy any piece of shit that gets tossed out of a factory. I don't think I'm one of those guys; I tend to research the stuff I get pretty well and I only get things that will be useful. Having a gadget just to show it off is the height of tool-dom, and it's something I avoid. The things I get I use pretty regularly.

So my current setup is as follows: Fujitsu 5010 tablet PC running Photoshop and Flash CS3, tethered by USB to an iPhone 3G (using pdaNet) for a wireless modem so I can do work and browse the web from literally anywhere. This seriously beats leeching wifi off of a starbucks out in the parking lot on my lunch breaks like a douche, desperately hunting for a close space so I can get a decent signal.

The iPhone is really good too. It's awful close to living up to the hype behind it, which is a rare compliment to give any technological gadget. Kind of sucks that it doesn't run Flash yet, but I understand the fear of opening up a mack-truck sized security hole in the thing by rushing out support. The 3G network on the phone has enough bandwidth to stream Satellite radio and play World of Warcraft at the same time. That's pretty god damn good.

The whole setup is pretty awesome. The only thing holding me back from absolute productivity in life now is my own apathy and laziness! Hooray!

So I've got a few things going on now. Nothing major, but, well, you know, stuff.

First: I've added a captcha to my site, forcing all of these fucking mindless hard-on medicine bots to do math or piss off. This means all of you need to do basic math to post on this site. If you can't do basic math, I probably don't want to talk to you, so whatever.

Second: I like radial blur. I used it to get the wings on that creepy Butcher Faerie up there to look all...blurry... and it worked exactly the way I wanted it the first time I used it. That' pretty rare; usually this sort of stuff takes a lot of trial and error.

Blur is a tricky thing in photoshop. I've seen a LOT of artists who are just starting to get a handle on it overdo blur to the point of irritation. It's sort of like drinking; use in moderation or you'll get all fucked up. Personally, I go the other way, being a near teetotaller as far as the blur function goes. It doesn't integrate well with my style unless it's used very sparingly. But radial blur has some nice potential for motion in it, so I'm probably going to sit down and really hack at it a bit and see what it can do.

Another interesting thing about the wings on this dude; they're wasp wings. Usually I just make shit up as I go, but this is one rare case where I used a direct photographic reference to make something. There's a few spots where they're off from real wasp wings, and some of the lines are a bit over-emphasized, but anatomically those are exactly what wasp wings look like.

Also, I am eating cream of broccoli soup for lunch, and eet eez deelishis! :dance:

So I just recently got back from my first *real* vacation ever. I was on a crusie ship, a veritable floating melanoma farm, surrounded by two factions of people I have nothing in common with: 21 year old drunken college students on spring break, and 60+ year old retired couples playing shuffle board.

The trip itself was good; got to see Mexico and Guatemala, the first time I've ever been out of the country (Canada doesn't count). Oddly enough, the most interesting part of the whole thing was the excursion trips by bus where I kind of got a chance to see how people in another country live from day to day. That part was even mroe interesting than Mayan ruins, old Spanish forts, and even a shallow depth mini sub cruising around a reef off of Cozumel.

I'm proud to say that I got my 'sea legs' within a day or two of being aboard the ship. Cruise ships are big, but not quite big enough that you don't feel some swaying and rocking, especially when tooling down the middle of the Gulf of mexico.

The problem now is that I want my sea legs to go the fuck away.

I've had dizziness and vertigo for DAAAAAYYYYYSSSSS now. Even sitting in a regular swivel chair in my cubicle makes me amazingly disoriented, and I feel like the whole earth is sliding sideways underneath me. I'm no nauseated at least, but every once in a while I sort of walk into a wall because I over-compensated for some kind of imaginary motion of the floor beneath me.

My wife had the exact opposite problem of course; she was dizzy on the ship, and fine as soon as she got off of it.

So anyway, the trip was good, if surreal and a little creepy from all the forced politeness, but these side effects are the opposite of fun.

I actually got a chance to do more art than I expected, including my interpretation fo a Red Cap above. You see, towards the end of the week aboard the ship we were starting to go insane. Once you sit down and find yourself enjoying the musical stylings of two Philipino lounge singers doing a Neil Diamond/Barbara Streisand tribute complete with fake witty banter and shitty synthesizer music, it's time to get the fuck off the boat.

Yep, I'm in a slump. Been in one for a while, actually.

It's sort of funny, because I've actually been pretty productive, but it's always the completion of any project or getting through the boring details that defeats me.

As you can see, I've done a pretty major graphic update for the header of the site, and also added in a spiffy tiled background that I spent far longer on than even a person with OCD should. I think it came out pretty well though, so whatever.

The problem is the details. See, I got all this graphic stuff done, and now when it comes time to properly implement it I'm just fucking exhausted. I have no desire to try and sort out this drupal theme and get shit working right. I know I have the ability, just not the will to grind through it. I mean, seriously, this is about the tenth time I've sat down to really hack the CSS on a theme for a blog/website, and I'm completely fed up with it.

I think I have a solution this time, however. Instead of (continuing) whining about it, I'm going to find someone and give them monies to solve my problems for me.

Now, this prospect makes me nervous, because I'm pretty picky about projects and such, but I think this is simple enough that I can psychologically let it go and let someone else do the ugly, painful parts. Now, don't take this is an open invitation to submit job applications; I've already got some people in mind who I can inflict this suffering on. I'm just saying is all.

Probably a big part of this "case of the mondays" shit is the crazy things that I bring into my life; like fostering extremely aggressive dogs for an animal rescue, or rescuing cats from crack addicts. That's a lot of stress, similar, from what I've seen, to what some of my friends who now have kids are going through. I'm not sure which is more dangerous: sharp teeth and claws, or opposable thumbs. Both have a high potential for disaster.

Which reminds me of another thing, my bulldog is the same size, weight, and shape as my friend's one year old son. And I mean, if you've seen a one year old, their heads are enormous... Sorry, random thought there.

I also found out that my dog has nine nipples.

Yeah, another random thought.

Did I mention that I'm actually allergic to dogs and cats? Yeah, I'm also half retarded I guess. Long haired cats make me so allergic that I can barely breath. The cat we rescued from the crack addict (maybe it was an alcoholic, I'm not sure, either way that cat was almost dead from neglect) is a long haired cat. So guess who hasn't been able to breath for the last month. That's right, THIS GUY! YEAH!!

Anyway, I think that I need to start delegating some of my shitty tasks to other people so that I can actually focus on the stuff I like doing. Like that little image of ennui and apathy there; that was really quite fun to belt out with my tablet, and quite frankly it's the first thing I've enjoyed working on in quite some time. Didn't feel like work, ya know, more like venting.

I seem to draw a lot of rabbit-rodent like things. Not sure why that is... hm.

Well, ok, that's all for now. Oh, and Rush Limbaugh is still a traitor and a tool (HA! Got a political jab in there at the end!! AHAHAHAHA!!!).Ok, that is all.

I think I might want to get one of these suckers when they're available: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29259226/

It's a self-contained propulsion aparatus that replaces the wheel on a bycicle and converts it into an electric bike.