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:
tired
- The Last DJ:Eddie Izzard - "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite [Beatles cover]"
This is more or less how I've spent the last four or five days. I've been in a pretty deep depression.
Yesterday I lay down in bed and slept the afternoon away, and when I woke up I realized I hadn't even been tired. I know that I sleep when I'm depressed, and the four hour "nap" I took yesterday was basically a warning sign that I was again. I almost did it today, but resisted. I don't like being defeated by my emotions.
Currently trying to draw my way out of it.
The words there are coming from Johanna, but of course they're mine. I don't know who we're talking to, exactly.
More art to come. Hopefully less depressing.
Edit: I don't know what the fuck LJ is doing to this entry. It keeps deleting my tags and changing back to my default icon. What the hell.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
depressed
- The Last DJ:REM - "At My Most Beautiful"
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
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
I'm at work right now, working the night shift, but I refuse to miss a day on Sketch of the Day (we'll see how long that lasts). So here's a quickie of Johanna.
- Turn This Car Around:at work
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
busy
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"
I don't do illegal drugs anymore. Now I just do the legal drugs. Tonight I'm on NyQuil and Sudafed. Let me tell you something, folks. Forget about cocaine and heroine. All you need is NyQuil and Sudafed. I'm telling you right now, I took the NyQuil five years ago. I just came out of the coma tonight before the fucking show! Claus Von Bulow was standing over my bed going, "Denis, get up! There's something the matter with Sunny! Hurry up!" I love NyQuil. Man, I love it! I love it. I love it. I love it. It's the best thing shit ever invented. Isn't it, huh? I love the name alone. NyQuil - Capitol N, small Y, big fucking Q! I love that fucking Q, don't you!? What a great advertising idea! Put a huge fucking Q on the box. They'll get high and stare at it. "The Q is talking to me! The Q is talking to me!" - Denis Leary, "No Cure For Cancer"
So, I seem to have come down with something. Also I wish I had a crazy straw, though that's actually a pretty normal feeling for me.
Yesterday it felt like my left tonsil was absurdly inflamed. I can't prove it, of course, but that's what it felt like (it was a "starting to not be able to feel it" kind of pain, which is always disturbing). That faded by mid-day and came back as a scratchy throat by evening. It still is a scratchy throat, as well as coughing, a runny nose, and watery eyes...all of which are bothersome, but I've always regarded the worst part of getting sick is the way my head feels.
Whenever I get sick with a cold like this, my mind kind of floats away. It's like when my blood sugar goes low sometimes: I'm conscious of what I'm doing but I have no immediate control over it (sort of like being in a dream, or I would imagine, being drunk). Stupid thoughts surface from nowhere and are actually spoken, sentences trail off into nothing, I can barely grasp the concept of carrying on a conversation...it really sucks. I don't know why it happens when I get sick, but it does, almost every time. Perhaps elements of my brain shut off because they're focusing their energy on my white blood cells.
Of course, if I take NyQuil -- which I'm going to do momentarily -- the floating head feeling amplifies itself by a million. I don't like not being in control of myself, which is why I haven't taken NyQuil in years, but I've been having trouble getting to sleep lately (amplified by weird dreams; how come whenever my life is going okay my subconscious gets fantastically bizarre?) so what the hell.
The tablet sketches mentioned yesterday will get done, I would just like to feel better and get my mind back in my head first. Doodling this actually took a fair amount of effort; I don't even want to attempt tablet drawing right now.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
brain floaty
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