So many of my stories don't get anywhere outside of my own brain. In some cases, considering the inane shit that goes on in there, this is a good thing. In other cases, it leaves characters hanging around and looking like they serve no purpose.
Tricia, my striped hyena girl from NYSOM. And yes, her pregnancy is completely canon -- it's actually been in the plans for quite some time.
Trish is the oldest of the main NYSOM crew, in her early to mid-thirties (everyone else is in their twenties; Thursday is the youngest). She's the only one of the five girls who is in all technicality single, she's the most educated (been to law school), and of the main crew (not counting side characters, of which there are way too many) she's the only native New Yorker, having grown up in Brooklyn. She's a tough broad, when you get right down to it.
Then Michael Morrison joins the law firm she works for and her life is thrown for a bit of a loop. He's fresh out of law school, and though he's working for a major law firm he's also still very...young. His idea of a fun night is pizza and video games. Trish is charmed, and Michael is amazed when he realizes that she's as interested in him as he is in her.
Their relationship is more "friends with benefits" than relationship, with terms agreed to early on between them, the first of which being that no one at work must know. Trish had been with the firm for years and with Michael just starting out, it would not look good. But hey, foolin' around, that's fine -- if either finds someone they'd rather be with, they can end it, easy as pie.
And then Trish gets a rather serious ear infection, isn't warned that the antibiotics she's taking null the effects of The Pill (yes, this is actually a warning on many antibiotics), one thing leads to another leads to another leads to...well. A sort of re-evaluation of the places both Tricia and Michael are at in life.
None of this dialogue is final, of course...I'm just roughing out ideas for how to present it. How do you bring up the idea of a character getting an abortion (which is talked about) without starting a flamewar? How do you bring up the idea of starting a family with a guy you were having what qualified as a silly little fling with (though he seems rather okay with the idea of maintaining the relationship, doesn't he), or being a single mother?
Obviously she does go through with the pregnancy. Actually, she'll end up going into labor at Adeline's wedding reception (oh yeah, the cliches are so totally worth it), eventually giving birth to twin boys.
But I'll get to that when I get to it.
( And some random female nudity; anteater & armadillo. )
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
nervous
- The Last DJ:REM - "Supernatural Superserious"
Life is full of uncertainties.
Right now, my life is a jumble of them.
I got a call on Friday afternoon concerning a job. This is, count 'em, the THIRD call I've had concerning a job since January...despite hundreds of my resumes floating out there. So of course, I called back and left a message that hopefully didn't sound too pleading.
Of course, they called on Friday afternoon at 4:30 -- the end of the work day and the end of the work week. Most likely I will not hear back until Monday morning (and of course, I'll be calling back Monday morning because it's been a long ten months and the idea of actually hearing back from anyone is sort of beyond my hopes at this point). I consider this cruel and unusual. It's a whole weekend of more than likely soon-to-be-crushed possibilities and hopes.
The job, and the interview -- if I get one -- is in Ohio.
So. Yeah. Lots of things to ponder over, stress out over, and wonder about. There are lots of possible changes. And, there's a strong possibility all this worrying will be for naught and I'll call on Monday and "Oh, you have to MOVE? Well, geez, why should we even think about interviewing you, let alone hiring you?"
Like I said. Cruel and unusual.
Sigh.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
tired
I think I'm just proving that I can interchange these guys between their furry selves and their human selves and there is very little difference outside of character design =p
(I actually am extremely fond of Johanna's human design, but I'm not sure if that's because I like her as a character/she's basically a fictionalized version of me. It's almost narcissism, except it's not.)
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
- The Last DJ:Eddie Izzard - "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite [Beatles cover]"
Apologies for the shitty scans. My scanner and Photoshop have decided to hate each other for some reason. Perhaps my scanner is jealous of my tablet?
I have been feeling very...blah about my art today. I honestly can't tell you why; I think I may have just woken up on the wrong side of the bed. All of these were drawn early this morning, not too long after midnight, which is when I seem to be drawing anymore.
I just feel like I don't have the motivation to make anything of my art -- even just for me and my friends. I have no intention of ever becoming rich and famous drawing anthropomorphic animals (or drawing anything, really) and I gave up my silly dream of being nominated for an Oscar for a short animated film long ago. I just don't get the satisfaction out of art that I used to. I can't sit down and finish or even layout a story reasonably; I have millions of ideas, hundreds of stories all bunched up in my head, and I can't finish (or in most cases, start) a single one. I love them all, but I just don't have the motivation to go anywhere with them.
This isn't a sympathy plea; this is more of a Note To Self. I just wonder if it's worth the effort, anymore. Drawing doesn't bring me the joy that it used to. Or maybe the pressures from life are finally getting to me, and stressing me out in a way that makes drawing irritating? I'm not sure.
I don't want to be this person anymore, though.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
gloomy
Emily outfitted in a button-up shirt (probably Jo's), boxers, and cowboy boots.
Inspired entirely by a post a few weeks ago by
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
tefindeno. I totally don't have a crush, I swear *coughliescough*.- You Don't Know How It Feels:
lethargic
- The Last DJ:Robyn Hitchcock - "Satellite"
Entirely autobiographical.
We're leaving for Ohio bright an' early tomorrow morning. I will have internet access and of course my phone (feel free to text if you have my number), but besides having to bake a wedding cake I also have to cram for finals and finish the last bits of my schoolwork. Feel free to follow me on Twitter for updates (my username is the same as it is here), I'll try to pop onto LJ when I can, but art-wise I will be limited to loose leaf paper and lacking a scanner, not to mention No Free Time At All.
Thank goodness, though, that this week will be the last week of this kind of stress: most of my classes end next Wednesday, I will have no further major road trips planned, and I'll finally be able to freakin' relax and get some stuff done.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
Just some random doodles.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
pleased
That's rope she's holding in her left hand...this is a rough for an eventual pin-up, inspired by
tefindeno's comment on my last sketches of Emily as a human.I'm trying to decide whether to give her freckles or not. The person she's based on has freckles everywhere, but I'm guessing that would make coloring her a complete pain in the ass =p Maybe a freckle or two, here and there...
Working with the shape of Emily's face...she needs to be spunky and cute, but still have some kind of edge; you don't fuck with her. I'd also like to keep some element of her armadillo design, which is why her chin got squared off this go 'round...her ears are also slightly pointy.
I'm still not comfortable with the design but I'm working on it. Already have an idea for the first page of the comic...
And here is my kitchen dragon!
My mom gave me a little stout plush dragon a while ago and when I moved into this apartment he somehow ended up in the kitchen. It's been a year and though he's moved around once in a while, he hasn't left the kitchen, so he's become sort of the kitchen mascot -- an odd thing because of his dark color scheme (as seen here) in comparison to the various brightly-colored things (YELLOW!) that outfit the kitchen.
I've pondered starting a cooking blog with this guy as my mascot, but frankly I don't think I'm good enough at food photography to pull a cooking blog off...even though I cook pretty often.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
full
Just some random Johanna and Emily doodles.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
I'm still ill, but I slept something like 17 hours over the day so I'm feeling a bit better.
I love "New York State of Mind" as a concept, and my short run of it as a once-a-week comic was a lot of fun (though also a lot of work, but fun and rewarding work). However, as a concept, it has a lot of faults...the most obvious being that it's got 7 different main characters: Adeline, Thursday, Johanna, Tricia, Emily, Jacob, and Richard (technically, three couples and one person who's single). There's dozens of background and side characters because it's basically a place where I let my imagination go all out. Each of the main characters had their own individual story and between the couples there's stories as well. It's a lot to cram into one comic, and it's really not fair to the characters.
This is not to say I'm killing off NYSOM; hell no. I'm just saying I need to focus on something a little less complicated before I tackle a project that big in a serious fashion. NYSOM is several graphic novels unto itself; I would have to be a cartoonist full-time (oh, God, I hope that happens one day) to get the thing done in any reasonable amount of time.
There's also the unfortunate element of the fact that the characters are anthropomorphic animals. Now, don't get me wrong! I love furry, I've been part of the fandom for something like a decade now and I'm not about to give up drawing cartoon animals just because it's not marketable. But...well, unfortunately, it's not marketable. Unless you've got the skill of someone like Martin Wagner (Hepcats), and even he had a hard time getting folks to accept that his characters had animal heads. If I want to get anywhere comics-wise I either have to go with silly, cartoony animals (like Dodge & TG) or go with human beings.
Of course, attempting to do a webcomic should be purely out of love of the craft. But frankly...well. I don't want to be read only as a furry comic. All of my furry characters are people with animal characteristics, which is why it's easy to interchange them with human counterparts; not much changes, outside of character design. Not much of the animal part of my characters gets through, outside of the occasional passing joke. I draw animal characters because of the design aspect and because I watched too many cartoons as a kid.
I guess I'm stuck between a love of design and a challenge to improve my human drawing skills -- is it still a love of craft if part of the reason you're doing what you're doing is because you know people will find it a little less weird? Of course, this would involve sitting down and actually committing to a webcomic of some kind, which I'm not sure I'm ready to do.
But anyway. Johanna and Emily as human folks, with some random ideas for webcomic titles. Done on the tablet, which was harder than you'd think 'cause I keep coughing and sneezing.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
curious
- The Last DJ:Semisonic - "Closing Time"
Profile
- tabbiewolf
- TabbieWolf
- vclarchive
Syndicate
