Yo'

2005-01-22:

I. Some changes: Briget's color. My monitor is set from going through Adobe's gamma set wizard thingy, or whatever it's called. But basically, what I see is how it should be, and also how the printouts look. From work and other places I've noticed that lots of people have their brightness jacked-up, and Bree looks noticeably BLUE. "Is that supposed to be Mystique?" from a co-worker was all I needed to hear. Fuck that, fade to black. Her overall shade value is still the same, but now the color is more flat with a twinge of green. It should now look more correct even if your monitor has the brightness jacked-up for playing "Doom 3". ;)

B. Spiro's feet: No more pointy toes. Just wasn't right. It sits better with me now.

4. Use of space. The file size on this one is actually lower than usual - about 73k. Still, I opted to leave a lot of empty space. This was a conscious choice. "Everything about this painting is wrong, yet it still works." That's from some movie I can't remember. Anyway, In PS I had cropped it, but it wasn't right. The use of space here is very deliberate. It just looks right to me. It carries a feel. Maybe I'm the only person who see's what I see from it, but if I can't please myself, I might as well be a whore. The off-center position of panels is also deliberate. Shit, just chalk it up to some art-bug crawling up my ass.

3. My sister dragged me out to a bar last night for what's turning into a weekly karaoke thing. I was bored so I took this comic to work on. I drew the third panel on a single page at the bar. For the first time, people were bothering me about my drawing. Well, a thing to know is that the pencils of Briget are always detailed. During the coloring stage I try to remember to take out all the inner details and leave just an outline. Anyway, a couple of people were checking it out and saying appreciative stuff about it. It was kinda cool. After I got the rope drawn, my sister wanted to show it to the guy running the karaoke rig. She said he was into bondage and might appreciate it. I handed it over and he grinned and gave me a thumbs-up. Although I was once tied to a bed, blindfolded and fucked nearly to death by a past girlfriend, I'm not much of a fan of the hobby. Anyway, I guess I know enough about it to draw it right.

%. I was originally experimenting and trying to draw a "fish-eye lens" effect for this. I got the idea from some cool shots that I saw in "Ghost in the Shell: Innocence". Turns out I couldn't pull it off at all, and had to stick with just trying to get the normal perspective correct. I'm still trying to build my skills, but I've learned that I have to take more logical steps in my learning and not rush.

µ. I had to tweak Bree in PS to get her more in-line with herself, and less centered on the bed. The ropes and her position are not intended to be perfect. Instead, I wanted a more realistic asymmetry to it all. More like the imperfect way it would really end up. Kinda silly to think of all the changes I made to make it look less centered and even, but that's my neurosis at work. Get you're own neurosis. There's plenty out there.

≈. Spiro's drinking a perfectly colorless bottle of Absolut. Nectar of the ice gods, and smooth as glass. It's like bottled happiness, if you're habitually or genetically predisposed to favor such things.

≥. Um, which I'm not.

°. One of the fellow drunks at the bar has a sister who writes children's books. She's looking for an artist. I said I'd do it, and gave him my web address. Ok, FIRST: the guy will probably not even remember that he was in a bar last night, let alone meeting me, SECOND: he checks out my drawing of a naked woman tied up on a bed and thinks I should draw for children's books? Whatever. Still, it would be cool to do, and if anything ever comes of it, I'll shout it from the rooftops.

». Which is also where I prefer to vote. ;)