helloeien

Guess it's about that time again:  REFLECTIONS.  With yours truly.

This is the beginning of my third week at home, without having to work, without being able to drive, without being able to do anything.  It seemed like it wasn't going to be that bad at first, but after the first week I was ready to hurl myself off a cliff... and back into work.  I figured, "Hey, more time with my boyfriend, more time for drawing, more relax--"  NOPE.  I hate this, and I wish I were working.  I wish I could drive.  I wish I could walk.  I wish I could play dancing games with my friends.  I wish I could leave this place and sit by the ocean for a few hours, because this is Florida and I live five minutes from one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.  I wish I weren't here so damn much.

Ash has spent a bunch of time watching movies with me, and helping me with art, and playing games with me.  Those times are okay.  I like those times.  I wish those were all of the times.

I hate not being able to walk without holding onto stuff.  I like holding on to Ash, but not when I walk.  I don't like having to hobble to check my mail.

If there was ever a frustration in my life, this is it.

I was tooling around in my "Completed Art" folder (which, you should know me by now, is not very full) and within that folder is a "OLD STUFF" folder.  I hesitatingly opened it up and saw, with my very own eyes, horrible things.  Things that I drew so long ago that are utterly terrible.  I figured it would be a fun (and encouraging!) exercise to redraw one of these horrid things and see where that ended up.  I even used the exact same colors (eyedropper tool).

One of the hardest things for an artist to deal with is the thought that they're going to stay at the same skill level forever.  Day to day, you rarely see any kind of improvement in your own work, and it starts to get really discouraging.  When you're in a rut like that, I suggest you find a year-old (or more) piece of work and redraw it with every new skill and technique you know now.  It really boosts the morale.

January 2007 vs. June 2008

It's fun, I promise.  If you don't already, you should save everything you draw no matter how bad you think it sucks.  Even if the only reason you do it is to come back to it later and laugh.

So there's a guy I know, and he likes to draw, too.  He had me draw one of his characters in my style, and I did just that.  Here's his character, and my version.

Tattoo for a friend.  Second time my art will be on someone's body forever ._.

Robit!

Here's that Epic Battle I mentioned earlier.  I drew two "superheroes," one being mine and one for my friend Trent, and we had a page-by-page battle wherein I drew one page, and he'd do the next, and we would alternate until it was over.  New Disaster Girl art after the comics!

And here's some new Disaster Girl art.  Maybe this will encourage that failure to get in gear and fight!

Disaster Girl Fo Rizzle

Noir Disaster

I've always liked The Beatles, which is all well and good.  Thing is, my mom loved them.  I mean, she saw them perform back in the Philippines, and she was a huge fan.  As a child with no kinda of developed taste in music other than, "this sounds pretty" and "this song is bad," I liked their music but I never understood what the big deal was.  Well, I understand now what the big deal was, but I never did during my mom's lifespan and this music would have made a great conversation piece.  At least, better than,

"Why do you like The Beatles so much?"
"Uh, why don't you?"
shrug.

Yesterday was one of her favorite songs by The Beatles, and I have a lot of trouble listening to it now; it's one of those random things that... I put it on my playlist, not thinking anything of it, and when it came on I couldn't even understand what I was thinking.  I was totally bombarded with this memory of the song coming on the radio when I was a wee child, and my mom in all her broken English singing, "YESterdaaaaay.  All my troubles seemed so FAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRR..." and I laughed, and told her the song was boring.  If she were here, I would call her and tell her she was right about these "Beatles" all along.

If there's one thing I never did enough, it was give her credit for everything she knew.  It may not have been much, but it's all in my life now, and far be it for baby me to think about the future, anyway.

Ash and I both reformatted, so my world within my computer is totally zen.  We have some bitchin' new themes and our computers are running the way they were meant to run.  It almost makes me forget about the big stupid cast on my leg.  Almost.

Bitchin'!

Welcome to the next four weeks of my life:

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