It's been pretty chilly out here lately. Well, chilly for the end of June. It warmed up some today, but it's only been about 65F for the past few days. It got down into the 40's overnight. Brrrr. I suppose it's better than 90F weather. At least we haven't had to use the AC much. So far, anyway.

Last week, after my dad and I got back one of our seven mile bike rides, we discovered that the power had gone out. So I decided that I'd take a quick shower, since I was all hot and sweaty and gross. Right when I get the shampoo all lathered up, the water pressure dies. Go figure; the water is heated with propane, but the pump still needs electricity. Anyway, I was running around the house in towel trying to find a faucet that still had some pressure so that I could at least get the shampoo out of my eyes. I ended up having to stick my head in the kitchen sink. It was very unpleasant. At around 11 that night the electricity came back on. Apparently there was a problem with a substation. The moral of this story is, don't shower when there's no electricity.

Dad and I pulled out the paddle boat and took the dogs for a ride. Our cocker spaniel puppy is still afraid of going in the water, but once she's in the boat she does all right. She likes to look at the water. Our other dog, Copper, loves the water and the boat. And swimming before getting in, so he soaks the seat.  Us human passengers have to sit and paddle with wet bums. =(

Unfortunately, some of our trees have gotten Dutch Elm Disease. One has already died, and another is starting to drop its leaves. Most of our large trees are Elms, so we are hoping that after we get the infected ones out it will stop spreading around and we won't loose all of them. Damn fungus-carrying beetles.

So, on GaiaOnline, I'm doing pretty good. Money-wise, right? I've been stalking the marketplace, buying and selling the monthly collectibles. I've accumulated a pretty nice chunk of gold. But, I guess wearing 5 collectibles and carrying another 4 in your shop makes *some* people think you're loaded. Pssssshhhh.
So I give you, silly pm's i got on gaia.

I got bored and brushed some pretty basic color into my day 5 sketch. Photoshop, maybe 45 minutes.

Ven's prosthesis. The wrist and hand do not allow for much fine motor skill and movement. =(
He's a bit scrawny, and some of the muscle forms in his other arm may be off.

But the color of his hair is spot on. :)



before

Dar 30 Days

day 3 - fred's crooked nose

Kingdom Hearts Art Contest =3

I was bored, and decided to count all the manga pages I've drawn.

The total came out to 335, but it's closer to 300 without counting covers, fillers, and gag strips.

I had thought that the number was around 250ish, so, wow. :d

What I wrote and drew back then wasn't so serious, and had a lot of comic relief. I lost count several times, because I'd just bust out giggling at someting. Some of it is still pretty dang good, one page in particular that I might just have to polish and post.

So, for all those pages, how many stories have I completed?

Zip. Zilch. Nada. But I hope to change that by Valentines.



Dude, I don't see the moire pattern on my last entry! *checks rez on this computer* 1024x768, got it. My compy is set higher. 12somesuch by somesuch thereabouts.

Nyah~~ :P

3 pages complete on the short story.

Concept arrrrrt.
Methinks...
DO render the clothes and the hair,
DO NOT render the skin.
Maybe.
It will be finalized once the designs are. I still need to come up with a method of balancing ink and tone that I like. Of course, the mood plays a big part, but for pages in general.

Photoshop, tone pattern self-made.

PS, the short story is coming along, and should be done around Valentines. 11x14 takes much longer to ink. =3

Ah, fantastic haul at the library. 

Angelic Layer 5 - utterly predictable, but cute.
PhD: Fantasy Degree 1 & 2 - well... I think I'm the wrong target audience for this series =/
Fruits Basket 14 - I loved it. Fly away, papers! :D
Fullmetal Alchemist 7, 8, 9 - Wow. The manga is just so much more intense than the anime and movie. So beautifully dark.

Also got a book on the first World War. Gotta start moving on my research with the two main stories I'm developing. It was hard to find, too; they had entire shelves of WWII, the War Between the States, and Vietnam, but only a tiny section for WWI. =(

I should finish that 9 page short story I've been working on this month. >.>

And figure a name for the character that wandered into my head a few days ago.

Odd how trying to write one new character's relationship with one of my oldest characters has lead to great leaps in that one's background, and a whole batch of history pretaining to the city they live in, which has opened up a lovely means to kick off a plot arc that has little to do with those individulals.

Too bad I kind of suck at getting coherant thoughts on paper. =P

Yay, I got Kingdom Hearts 2!

Except, I didn't play Chain of Memories, so I'm kind of confused. o.o

But I've already helped Mulan save China from that evil Hun, his stupid bird, and all the hordes of Heartless. Woo-ha!

Also got many new comics, the Mangaka America art/tutorial book, couple of shirts, some candles... Mmmm, chocolate. Not the candles. ;)

And... still working on the painting. Can't decide on a hair color for the girl...

Happy Holidays. :D

Erm. Gimp inking thing didn't go over so well.

I cannot for the life of me, understand the node thing. I put down a line, and click to pull it up to my curve, but another line pops up and warps the first when you rotate it.

So I ended up printing out my digital sketch (after red, blue, and purple-lining it). That was probably the better option because I corrected some more problems after looking at it upside-down, backwards, and sideways. Traced it onto a new sheet of paper using my tv, and inked the bugger.

So it's waiting for color, maybe I can get up early enough to snag this compy before someone else decides to play games.

Yes, this is all about a silly piece of lineart. But it's a really pretty piece of silly lineart.

=3

1235 songs, and still 16 gigs of free space.

I love my mp3 player.


*edit, 1419 songs and 15.1 gigs. x3

I'm on Gaia now, same name as always- DarKlawStudios :)

Hahaha, this article has managed to break my art block.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=bmb&article=2352

Better get to work, to make it to that top 10% :P


And remember to vote in my poll, to help me figure out what kind of story to make next.
<poll:73374>

Chipping away at the to-do list...

Sketchyness. Last art of the month :d.



Lyric from "All Downhill From Here" / New Found Glory courtesy of www.azlyrics.com
( http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/newfoundglory/alldownhillfromhere.html )

You’re hiding something, ‘cause it’s burning through your eyes
I try to get it out, but all I hear from you are lies

Pre-Chorus:
And I can tell you’re going through the motions
I figured you were acting out your part
Once again, we’re playing off emotion
Which one of us will burn until the end?

Chorus:
Catalyst, you insist to pull me down
You contradict the fact that you still want me around
And it’s all downhill from here
And it’s all downhill from here

Your good intentions slowly turn to bitterness
Reoccurring episodes with each and every kiss
(Let’s go!)

Pre-Chorus

Chorus

And I can’t believe you pulled it off again
Or notice till it all sets in
You’ll deny it ‘til you’re at your bitter end

Pre-Chorus

Chorus

And you keep pulling me down!
(pulling me down)
(pulling me down)
You contradict the fact that you still want me around
And it’s all downhill from here
And it’s all downhill from here


Change the 'insist' to 'exist' and it's perfect._{That's what I thought it was before looking it up >.>}

♪ = ♥


PS, new poll. <poll:73041>

Hmmmmm.

photoshop elements, wacom ruby, maybe 2.5 hours

comments?

<URL:stuff/darwallpaper.jpg>

Wallpaper. :D

1024x768

It's late, I'm tired, and this is a farking riot. xD

Oh yeah, what I'm up to-

Next 3 days off work. So getting some AG and other artiness worked on, maybe tinker with the website design a bit... I'm hoping to get the rest of Act 1 for AG done really soon, but a few of the boards still look icky. Also much cleaning to be had, and some piano practice as well. I should post a picture of the cess-pool that is my bedroom. It'd be good for a laugh. :d And my new swords and paintings I got at the art show over the weekend. Now I have a real katana to reference instead of that plastic piece of crap. :DD

All my other short(er) stories are also clamoring for attention as well, now that my mind isn't so pre-occupied with so much. There are, besides AG, 2... errr... *counts on fingers* 8 others demanding to be drawn. I think... A few others are still snoozing, thankfully. I try to work on all of them, but AG is the priority. BUT, in a couple of months, MG will take over because it will be going to Tokyopop RSOM. :d Gonna follow through this time. It better board out right, or I will be pissed, because it is kick-ass.

So, a short story *may* appear in addition to AG in the future. I dunno. One of them has really been coming together lately, so I'm going to grab Clunker and work on it until I'm so tired I can't see straight. :B

*EDIT- Updated my story list; there are actually 12 of them, counting AG. Dar Stories.

Mouse's left-click still broken, but I am gettiing good at navigating with the stylus.

Howl's Moving Castle was so good. I actually enjoy watching the voice-overs on Miazaki's films because they do such a good job. ^^

Okay, I had this crazy dream where I was still in high school, and for whatever reason these two random guys are there campaigning for their party's nomination for whatever.

Anyway... oi, how did it go... There was some sort of assembly outside and I decided to skip out and go across the street to the elementary school 'cause they have good swings, and H________ was the one by the HS instead of M_____, only for some reason there was this big abandoned building where the track should be.

Just then all these cop cars come pulling up with sirens on and it turns out they were escorting Al Capone who was endorsing one of the campaigners, along with Bob Marley. So I went back to the school to see what was up.

So Capone and Marly are making speeches in favor of Candidate A on the steps of my high school, and I'm wondering why the hell these people are here when I remember that the day before, I apparently went into that abandoned building and discovered that it was really a chop shop where cars are dissembled and sold for parts.

I casually drop a comment about that and they get really pale and all the cops go over there, and sure enough, chop shop. Then a girl I know from work shows up and says something like "I need a new head" or something about her head and then this other celebrity guy showed but and we were talking about something and then I woke up.

My first thought upon waking was along the lines of "What the hell?"

Almost as strange as the dream where I was in my grandparents' basement putting together a Barbie jigsaw puzzle with Trunks from DBZ or that one about the jungle-jim that smuggled cows...
But not creepy like the one where I was on a SWAT team and got my ear (and part of my head) sawed off by some serial killer. That was uncool. My ear hurt really bad when I woke up. :(

No more sugar and political comics late at night for Dar!

I think all of these subcultures (punk, goth, emo, prep, etc) are beginning to blend together. In my school, there are jocks who try to pass themselves off as punk, preps who dress like goths, goths the dress like preps, and all sorts of other strange mixes. Oo

The jocks (who always act like they are drunk) and the goth/emos (who always act like they are stoned) don't get on well.

Some of the underclassmen goth wannabe's rammble on in the whole 'valley girl' dialect. "Like, omg, we got trashed and like whatever"

Crazy. It's like kids can't decide who to imitate anymore.

I found out (the hard way) that trying to fit in with who's popluar doesn't turn out well waaaay back in elementary school. Our group in high school has been a strange mix of semi-preppy semi-jock loner band-geeky brainy artsy chicks with GPA's all over the scale and political/religious viewpoints all over the spectrum. But we all get on fine with the occasional squabbles.

And then people go around yelling, "DON'T LABEL ME!!" Of course people will always label one another as long as there are differences in culture/behavior. I'd sooner live in a world with lables than a world where everyone is the same.

Take me, I get high marks in school, but I'm not too serious about studying. I just look through my notes again before exams.
I like to wear black. Most of my t-shirts are black, and I constantly wear a black hoodie. With our school's logo plastered on it. Yep.
I don't do sports, unless you count marching band as a sport. It should be, we have summer camp, practices, and competitions. I do find it irksome when cheerleaders whine about how hard it is for all 6 of them to be in perfect sync. Guess what love, in a marching band there are between 40 and 400 people, and they ALL have to be in sync.
I am a notorious bookworm, but I'm also into video games.
I generally like to be by myself, and I tend to prefer the company of my pets to people. (except you, Mook, you are just annoying)
I write essays for the hell of it.
And of course I have a huge obsession with comic books. American, European, Japanese, political, newspaper syndicate, you name it. :3

People can label me all they want, I just don't care. X3

Fwah, I rant. I also own my own car. :P