Had some time to do some sketching… well, ok, I never have time, but I wanted to do some sketching to clear my mind instead of doing what I was supposed to be doing. So I decided to do the Iron Fist sketch card that I’ve been meaning to do forever to go with the…
Day 1027 of 365 Again. Ever see the movie Roger Rabbit? Or Cool World? basically, real people interacting with cartoons through the magic of special effects. I had the idea today to do that with a upcoming photoshoot and I’m kind of wondering how it would go over. The biggest problem really is that it…
Day 996 of 365 Again. It’s always nice to take a break under a tree. My life has been moving one million miles per hour lately. I go to work all day during the weekdays and spend all night and the entire weekend working on the comic and photography. At one point I was behind…
Day 995 of 365 Again. When I was a kid I wanted to make comics. You’d think that’d mean that Cosmic Hellcats is a dream come true, and you’d be half right. Up until now, I’ve been writing Hellcats and coloring it. Max has been doing the drawing. A few weeks ago, he decided that…
Day 663 of 365 More.
Well, they worked their asses off in the last 90 seconds, but the Pens didn’t pull off the win in game six. The Stanley Cup is over. *sigh* Wake me up when it’s football season.
Anyway, about this pic. I don’t really want to explain too much because it would ruin tomorrow’s shot. I haven’t done anything really big for 365 in a while, but for this weeks 365 Days Podcast picture of the week mini-challenge, I came up with something that I was hoping would be fun for everyone, and I wanted to do it justice myself. The theme will be Collaborations, a chance to work with another 365 photographer. So I decided to go for broke on this one and do something really ambitious.
So ambitious that I can’t just throw it all together tomorrow.
So what you’re looking at is the planning stage. The storyboarding.
Have I picqued your interests yet? Good. Be sure to check back tomorrow.
Day 651 of 365 More.
You know, I used to actually be good at this stuff. I really was. I was so good I even got into a pretty exclusive art school.
Of course, they ruined me.
*sigh*
I swear, I’m not fishing for compliments. This is not an attempt to make people come out of the woodwork saying "you are good." And its not an attempt to belittle anyone who thinks they don’t draw as well as me.
It’s just that I’m not happy with where my pencilling skills are right now. To be fair, I’m not the same person I was. The person I used to be drew every day for 11 years or so. The person I am today misses that and has been trying to recapture it for 3 days.
I guess I can’t expect magic over night.
I just don’t know if I can expect magic at all. The thing is, it just doesn’t work how it used to. The thing that makes me a good(i think) photographer is that I see the composition I want in my mind long before I ever actually snap the shot. I’ve always said, I’m not really a photographer. I’m an artist. I just draw with a camera now.
Drawing used to be the same way. I used to just see what I wanted in my mind and then it was a simple matter of tracing that image on the page. I still want to be able to do that, but the motor skill just aren’t there anymore.
I wonder if I’m doomed. I wonder if its just my lack of drive. I used to love drawing. If I was sitting in a class, listening to a lecture, and not paying attention, I’d look down at my notebook and find out that I had absentmindedly doodled the person sitting in front of me. That doesn’t happen anymore. Now I am pushing myself. And I’m not doing it out of love, I’m doing it out of regret. Trying to recapture I once had for the simple reason that I want to draw my own comic. There’s not even a good reason for that. I’m quite happy with the job Max is doing on Hellcats. And really, I have no real desire to take his reigns and do the daily art chores. But if we’re going to do this series of solo stories, I want to draw one of them.
Mostly just so I can say I did, I guess.
*sigh* I may never get there.
Day 650 of 365 More.
Well, I guess I’m getting a little better. Now great, but getting there.
Did some more drawing today. I’m still not comfortable to the point where I feel like I can do a whole comic, but maybe I’ll get there.
In the meantime, if you haven’t been checking out our comic, please do, and let me know what you think. Max and I update the comic ever Monday and Thursday, so a new episode went up this morning.
And if you like to draw and you want to take a shot at drawing one of the girls, by all means do so and send it to feedback@cosmichellcats.com. We have a fan art section that just doesn’t have enough stuff there yet, so I’d like to fill it out some.
Blah, it’s only 1:30am. Maybe I’ll go to sleep early for once.
Day 648 of 365 More.
"Now keep in mind that I’m an artist,
And I’m sensitive about my shit…"
-Badu
Let me let you in on a little secret. I’m not really a photographer. I never even wanted to be. I never took a single class for it.
What I wanted to be was an artist. It’s what I dreamed about when I was seven years old. It’s what I went to college for. I wanted to make comics. A childhood fantasy, sure, but its what I dreamed of.
That dream got ripped right out of my brain during school. I gave up. I became a writer, and later when I started seeing that being a writer was no more realistic than being an artist, I became a web designer.
Then I found photography. All the same rules of being an artist applied, just with different tools. And since I was doing it on my own again, there was no asshole faculty members telling me I was doing it wrong. I grew to even think I was kinda good at it. Sometimes I was even happy.
I got even happier when we started doing Hellcats. Lookie there! I was making a comic. The seven year old boy in my brain was shitting himself.
Max and I had this idea of doing a special edition of the book after we finish the second issue (which we still haven’t really started since we’ve been so busy with the comic strip). It would be four shorter solo stories, one for each of the girls. Each by a different artist. Max wants to write one of them as well as draw and it got me thinking that maybe I’d like to draw one as well as write.
God, I’m out of practice with freehand drawing. It’s been years since I’ve really given it a serious try. I totally suck now.
Now I have to decide if I want to retrain myself in the next few months (I don’t know when the hell I’d find the time) or just give up.
*sigh* There are just not enough hours in the day.
Day 165 of 365 days. For Christmas, I got Steph an easel and a bunch of art products because she wanted to be more creative. She’s even been doing her own 365 Day project as of a couple days ago (using the camera I bought her for our anniversary). But one of the things she…