assorted weekend projects ~

nextian sent me a meme and i am passing it along. the gig is: i answer thirty questions with one (or none or several, apparently) name(s) each, and you only find out the questions if you comment and promise to do it yourself.

( meme! )

~ * ~

meanwhile, it's been an up/down weekend and lj is making the option of skipping over the permanent account sale very easy. they even moved the selling window to december ~ guess they're trying to fix the hideous profile page before sale (too late: they've lost my money).

it's 26 degrees right now, which is about just right for an indoor temp in the ballpark of 58-60. i'm wearing fleecy jammies, muffy socks, and a light nightgown (and hell no, i didn't get dressed all weekend, which was my plan ~ weeeeee!)

okay, but on to business.

the challenges of the challenge: spent the earlier part of saturday morning painting the first three strips. i'm not unhappy with how they came out, though there are things about them i could criticize (aren't there always?). the real problem is that between the drawing, inking, painting, and lettering, i have to do four passes with each strip and by the third pass, i'm feeling kvetchy about the whole project. this is me being overly fussy and lazy and undisciplined, but it's a serious problem because right now i wish i'd never drawn a single panel and i'm ruminating on the simplicity of just writing pert little bon-bon novellas and not bothering with all this falutin' "art" nonsense.

you have no idea.

: o p

i think i keep going in this circle because i don't want to be defeated, because i have in mind this concept and the concept includes pictures, but i can never quite get a handle on what it looks like in a physical form.

right now, sam ita's Moby Dick (is that ironic or what?) and 20,000 Leagues under the Sea come closest in spirit, but without the pop-ups. i keep looking at book designs and illustrations and there are dozens out there that i would love to emulate and dozens i've thought were "right" for this untenable creature but which proved too stiff (the victorian periodical was in the win for a long long time, but there was something inorganic about it that bothered me: the lack of color and the density of the text, mostly). and i have poured over william morris, whose designs were as close to a modern-day illuminated manuscript in the 19th century, but morris was a genius and ultimately i want something softer than the print block. i want something somewhat luscious, but also gritty ~ like pie. pie is vibrant, crisp, warm, melty.

anyone on my flist know of a book that mimics the experience of pie?

well, all sunday i toiled and moiled and despite several highly experiment stabs, came up with something pretty traditional and that's where it stands (still). i don't hate it (you can see it here). i used a lot of layers to get the color just right (hope everyone likes yellow, because that's what it is!). i guess i can only see how it goes from here.

nice frost on the ground this morning ~ still wish it would snow.

: o p


from sam ita's Moby Dick: not a very
good picture, but it might give you an impression
of the complexity of the book