An (admittedly selfish) note to bloggers: If you are a 32 year old housewife with angst: please refrain from telling the world about it. I only read about your cute little lives to entertain myself, and occasionally steal ideas on how to make stuffed animals or block prints, not because I want to see what teenage live journals would be like if they all aged 10 years, got a domain and knowledge of Typepad (but retained their need to have random strangers validate their lives).
Seriously. We all need a lot more Travis Nicholson in our lives. Now that’s how you blog.
Also note how I did not bracket that opening paragraph with <selfish> blah blah </selfish>. That’s tired.
Enough of my self indulgent telling other people how to live their internet lives though.
I am actually pretty happy with the way things are going (disappointing daily blog reads notwithstanding).
The VBP is going very well, despite yet another slight hiatus due to finishing off my work at the Press.
It’s coming to a close. The last issue of the academic year is hitting stands, and all that’s left is for me to train the incoming protege, and hope he or she doesn’t outshine me too horrifically.

There is too much to do, and not enough time to do it. I’ve been trying to get work done on the Really Big Project, but this week has proven to be much too busy. It would figure that now that I have alternative work to do, the editors have finally realized that having a illustrator on staff is a useful resource.
Ton’s of requests for illustrations this week, and more to come.
While I appreciate actually having to do my job, I feel like its left me behind where I should be.
I’ve managed to get a little done today, and I will probably work on the RBP into the night (such is working freelance). However, tomorrow afternoon I leave for a regional conference in Windsor. So that pretty much cancels out the weekend.
On the upside, I really seem to be getting into the swing of things.
I’ve run out of ink for my favourite pen, and I haven’t gotten the chance to run out and get another (especially since the variety I use just so happens to be a rare and unpredictable thing to hunt down) so there’s been no more sketching, but there has been a lot more experimenting with gradients and transparencies in Adobe Illustrator.
I seem to be at a spot where the infamous disadvantages of 3D rendering simply aren’t important anymore. I’m just looking for a way to apply clean and minimal texture to something, without resorting to fiddly Photoshop filters and brushes. I’m very happy with the way this stuff is turning out.


The Birdie got printed in the paper this week, but there was no space for the Fishie. They were both originally in black and white, but I colourized them. I also turned the bird into a robin in celebration of the fact that today, though rainy, actually makes me feel like spring has arrived.
I’ve been putting off mentioning it for fear of scaring it away. But I think it’s safe to say that the warmer months are upon us.
Woah, and the sun just suddenly came out to confirm my suspicions.
Alas, I am stuck inside by the cold glow of my laptop screen.
Back to work I go.

I apologise to all who read the press for the unfunnyness of the edcomic. The reason it is so unfunny is that I did not do it this week. I was too busy being achey and fluey. We got it off the wire.
I think I am feeling better today, but I often find after a few days of sickness it becomes hard to gauge where you are at anymore. I hate being sick when I know there is stuff to be accomplished.

Usually I don’t care much when celebrities die. Occasionally I do. Hunter S. Thompson was a genius (irregardless of his controversy), and his death is tragic. He did so much for journalism and writing, especially the radical kind that we as student journalists are supposed to uphold. I knew we (at the Press) had to acknowledge him somewhere. So I did my edcomic this week as bit of a tribute to him.

On the more technical side of things, I just realised that my edcomic characters look very Flintstoneian. I think I’m OK with that actually. Its better than South Parkian (which I hear about them way, way too often).
This is not actually the print version. I wasn’t happy with it, so I tweaked it a little. I spent forever on it yesterday, wanting to get it just right. I wish I’d give myself more time to do these things, but then they very often wouldn’t be timely (which is critical for an edcomic).