Whining

I've been drawing a lot of imps and hellish critters lately when I'm not grinding away at the Steamvolt comic. I'll admit, a lot of my inspiration comes from Barlowe's Guide to the Inferno, which is a pretty incredible piece of work.

Now, I'm not the least bit religious, and I don't believe in any of this stuff, but the concept of it I find fascinating. The whole notion of damnation and eternal torment and that there's a place for sinners and such to go once they die. It's just interesting stuff. The imagery such ideas conjure up, along with the emotional impact they can have are pretty intense. So chances are, I'm going to keep sketching stuff like this for a while now.

This one started out as a pencil sketch back in 2007 or maybe early 2008. I finally got around to slapping some color onto it. I was thinking of this critter as sort of a scavenger and hunter, with a jaw for crushing bones and a rasping tongue to extract marrow. Sort of like Hell's version of a Hyena. Yes, these are the things I actually daydream about. Fun stuff!

And speaking of Hell and damnation, I was stuck in a three hour long motivational seminar yesterday at work. Now, I'll admit, this one wasn't as painful as some of the one's I've been forced to go to in the past, but it was still pretty mind numbing. The best thing I got out of it was a goofy sketch I whipped up on a notepad while I was trying to stay focused.

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.

Well, it's election day tomorrow.

Finally.

This has been a pretty crazy election year... I'm glad it'll be over soon. I'm especially glad that Obama appears to be winning by a huge margin too; maybe we can get finally get past this historical period of Republican idiocy.

In other news, I'm waiting impatiently for my new tablet PC to show up. I can't really afford the thing, but the extra hours of work I'll be able to put in while commuting and during lunch will be most excellent.

Other than that I'm still plugging along on Flash projects and researching how to code browser games. Not a whole lot of art lately; too much insanity between job, house repairs/renovation, foster dogs, and my own neurosis to get much done.

Getting the tablet will be nice though. There's a lot of times I just need to bugger off and find a place to chill out and do some work, and I've got a back-log of over 60 sketches that have been scanned I've not had a chance to do any digital coloring too. Same with some of my comics and other ideas, and this website is held together with the virtual equivalent of chewing gum and duct tape.

That's one of those shitty things about having so much stuff to do at home: you just can't relax and actually do any side projects when your to-do list is two meters long. Blarg.

Well, I'm going through the arduous process of rebuilding my database still, with specific attention on the Blog entries.A funny thing I noticed: I whine a lot about trying to get this website to work, without actually producing much content. I suppose that's the story of my life...

Well, I've let this site lie fallow for a while now, because I have very little desire to grind through my database and tweak several thousand tables so that they're compliant with the new drupal. That's HOURS of work I have to look forward to.

Currently missing are half of my links and all of my galleries and every forum entry, and probably other stuff I just haven't come across yet.

Been a while since I posted, and although it may appear like I've been pretty inactive, I've been doing a lot of shit. So this is what I've learned:

• Sleep is for the weak.
• Trying to live out the first point will make you start to hallucinate.
• Paintball is awesome fun.
• Paintball is not awesome fun if you're not wearing a cup.

This squidish picture has nothing to do with anything, it just happens to be a sketch I colored last night.

So today was exciting: I heard an impressive political speech, with 50% less bullshit than average, got to watch one of my co-

Lots to talk about for once!

First of all: D&D co-creator Gary Gygax passed away on March 4th; he is now beyond the scope of healing spells.

As a good follow up to almost cutting my big toe off, I've now managed to destroy my spine. Ok, myabe not destroy, exactly, but I pulled or tore some muscle in my lower back so badly that I can't actually walk very well. I'm high as a kite on vicodin and muscle relaxers now.

Yep, I almost cut my big toe off. It sucked.

The Wife and I finally decided to replace our craptacular old hand-me-down computer desks, if you can call ten pounds of cheap steel and chip board a desk, with actual nice mostly wood desks.