Christmas time rules!

Hey guys! I hope everyone is having a great Christmas. I got some awesome stuff this year, but that's not really the point.

I did want to make a quick post to show you guys one thing I got that IS relevant to this blog.

I got a drawing table!!!

















Sorry for the crummy quality pic, I only have a cheap Wal-Mart webcam with which to capture this beautiful piece of furniture. It's solid walnut, and one of the most beautiful and sturdy tables I've seen. I've also been secretly obsessing over this thing for about a year and a half now. My wonderful fiancee tipped off my parents that I wanted it, and I was surprised with this thing today.

After a somewhat embarrassing scavenger hunt. But we won't go into that.

Feliz Navidad!

Hey, Merry Christmas Eve everyone!

Just thought I'd drop a line and show you guys the colored Minotaur. This is the photoshop version. I'm gonna paint the same picture in painter to see which I like better. It should be interesting to say the least.

Enjoy!

Going Greek

Heh, no I'm not joining a fraternity.

I'm FINALLY getting off my superhero kick. I still love to create superhero works of art, but I think it's about time they took a hike for a while. I needed something fresh and fun, and (after putting the sketchbook and tablet away for a while) I decided to do some reading.

On a side note, I read the book Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz in less than a day this week . . . I highly recommend this book to anyone who's into supernatural thrillers. Very good.

However, also on my list of reading was some mythology. The Iliad to be specific. So this has had me in a somewhat creative mood for the last couple of days. Well, I thought to myself: "self . . . maybe you should do some mythological creatures."

Hmmmmm . . . that's not a bad idea.

So anyway, here is the pencil sketch for the first of my mythological creatures artwork: The Minotaur.




















I'm having fun with this one. I'm also taking my time. The flatting portion of coloring (which is only the first third) is about half done. So I'm about one sixth of the way done with coloring this image (if you wanna be technical).

I'll post the finished product when it's done.

In other news: I love my new job, Merry Christmas, and Unbreakable is M. Night Shyamalan's most overlooked movie (just watched it again tonight . . . BRILLIANT!!).

A sadness and a happiness

Okay . . . prayers. Definitely.

Yeah, the semester is finally over and this was one that just royally killed me. I need to pray and think about where exactly I want to be and also (yes, I'll say it) where exactly God wants me. This is going to be a time of tremendous change for me. I'd appreciate any prayers/well wishes/whatever. Sympathy, I don't need.

In brighter news, I got both my new PC and the tablet notebook that has been attempting to journey down here from New York. They both rule. I actually did a superman doodle on the tablet (I'm going to have to get used to using this thing), but since my wireless is fried and I have no flash drive at the moment, I can't get online to post it. Don't worry though, as soon as I can, I'll do so.

Oh, and I think I got my fiancee hooked on Corel Painter IX.

Contemplating a life without technology

Not really, just wanted to air my recent frustrations with computers and the like. Anywho. I'm on hiatus from the comic work (and ironically enough, from artwork in general thanks to my PC frying on me), and I just wanted to post a little something to assure anyone who may happen to stumble onto this blog (I don't kid myself, I don't have regular readers . . . yet) that I am indeed alive.

Allow me to fill you in on the ordeal this last week has been.

First my computer fries (yippee! that was fun), then my fiancee calls me in a panic because a floppy disk with her term paper has just corrupted. Yeah . . . no back up copies of the term paper anywhere. So after several hours (and a late night) of work with two of the most incredible computer geeks ever, we FINALLY managed to retreive her data. Well, in the process of finding some stuff to retrieve the data, I managed to pick up a virus. Not really sure where. I don't use warez, and I don't look at smut . . . so I'm kinda stumped as to where it came from.

Thus begins the three day virus war.

I fought with that stupid thing for three days and never managed to eradicate it from my machine. So I grabbed all my important files from my Windows partition . . . moved them into Linux, flipped Bill Gates the bird (not really, but it would have felt great), and promptly deleted my Windows partition. So now I'm on a half broken laptop with only Linux.

Hurray.

I'm just glad that my classes ended before this all happened because my school work would have been ridiculously difficult to work on.

So now, here I sit waiting for my new PC to be delivered (goodbye money . . . you will be missed), and trying not to shoot someone over the fiascos regarding the tablet pc that I'm supposed to be getting from Chris (my writer at the comic strip - check out his blog in the sidebar). It started last week when he went to ship this thing to me (now, bear in mind that at THAT time it was already late). The post office up there claimed that the person who does priority shipping wasn't present so they couldn't take the package.

Uh huh, I buy that. NOT.

I know full well that they can take it and let it sit overnight until the priority shipping guy shows up the next morning. Then when he finally gets it to them, they proceed to key in the wrong address, causing it to be returned "undeliverable" and they deposit it on his doorstep, in horrendous condition. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO QUALITY CONTROL?!?!? When I was working in a movie store, if I had dropped a box of movies, or even stored a box that was as banged up as the parcel that the post office left sitting on his doorstep, I'd have been fired! As a federal institution, you think there would be some sort of repurcussion when someone does something like screw up an address. I'll grant that most postal employees are hard working and under-appreciated; however, for a small town post office, these guys really seem to be slacking off.

The thing that really irks me is that even though they'll reship it for him for free (as well they should), I'M the one that got screwed. And recompense is a long time coming.

So yeah. Technology isn't exactly my best friend right now. I'm sure it will be in a couple of hours when I have the new PC and can play counter-strike again. But for now, I'm contemplating going out to the parking lot of my apartment, burning an old tire, making hot chocolate the way people used to, and toasting a jumbo sized bag of marshmallows on a coat hanger with a homeless guy.

Actually, that sounds kinda fun.

That's not a pleasant sound

Wow.

So I'm sitting at my computer deciding whether to play a game or start a sketch when I hear a "SNAPweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrmmmmmm".

My computer is toast.

I now have only a laptop. And since I do 99.999999999999999% of my work on the desktop computer, that means that my artwork is toast too. I'm pretty sure the hard drive is salvageable, but the rest is either fried or too out of date to be worth much. So basically, my work is still there, but I can't get to it.

On the plus side of things, I have a Toshiba tablet notebook in the mail and should receive it sometime next week. This way I can keep doing artwork.

UGH. If you pray, pray for me. If you don't, then at least wish me well as I attempt to scrimp and save AND pay off debt elsewhere. God willing, I'll make enough to get a new computer before I get married. If not . . . well . . . we'll figure it out.