Games I’m Playing! Playstation 3 & PS2
The Saboteur
Borderlands
PixelJunk: Shooter
Critter Crunch
Playstation Portable
LittleBigPlanet
LocoRoco2
Rock Band Unplugged
Xbox360 & XBLA
Prince of Persia
COD4: Modern Warfare
Magic: The Gathering
Geometry Wars
Kingdom for Keflings
Wii & Gamecube
New Super Mario Bros Wii
DS & GBA
Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Steam / PC
VVVVVV
Obulis
Osmos
Chains
Jedi Academy
Saints Row 2
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For the first time since 2004, I decided to not even start an attempt at NaNoWriMo (and this is the year that pretty much everyone around me is actually doing it). I’ve always been a fan of the idea, not because it gets good novels started, but because its a way to spur people who may not normally write or do much creative stuff, to actually try their hand at it. The sense of community you can get from doing something like that is immense and can really be inspiring… and I’m all for people finding creative outlets in which to express themselves.
Sure, what you produce in that month is pretty much pure shit, but in some ways, knowing that everyone is feverishly producing the same level of work pushes you forward and gives you the courage to admit that, yes, your work isn’t great, but that’s not the point. And I think it’s an honorable exercise, really… too many times, when people try being creative, they hold themselves to standards which they will never meet as beginners. Whether its webcomics, fanfiction, novels, artwork, or any other creative outlet, it is far too easy to compare ourselves to the more popular and successful people in the field and quit in a fit of frustration when we give our time and effort and don’t see any immediate return on that investment.
It’s easy to overlook that beginning period when looking up to people who have already “made it” in their field. But they didn’t just get handed a golden ticket which led them straight to the success train. They had to work at it just as hard as we do when we start our own creative endeavors. And sure, its a fact that most people’s creativity will never be rewarded on a large scale, but if you never make the attempt, you’ll never even have a chance to be rewarded/recognized for what you can do.
As you can tell, I will miss NaNoWriMo this november… and before you can say it, no I’m not reconsidering. Instead, I’m crafting a challenge of my own and will use my blog to update you on the progress as I make it.
November, for me, will be an artistic challenge. I plan to sketch something unrelated to either of my comics everyday. I will be working on my black and white art (practicing how to use whitespace effectively and limit my use of greys). And I will also begin actively working on another comic idea and artstyle I’ve been writing for almost a year now.
Sure, I love to write, but I’ve been writing for a long time and know where I need improvement and how to challenge myself and write daily. Where I need more discipline is in my artwork. So while you all write like crazy, I’ll be drawing my hand off. Having never completed NaNoWriMo, I wish us all good luck to all of us. Trust me, we’ll need all of it we can get.
Cori did this post a few days ago and I was like “heh, i already have a pic of that up, might as well reblog it” and so I am doing that. Right now. And you’re reading it. Congrats.
- EmilyStrange (my laptop), where I do all my work since its portable and newer than my desktop
- Wacom Intuos3 9×12 graphics tablet. She is beautiful. I love her very very much.
- Krazim, my desktop PC where I was watching KC Green ustream, chatting on gtalk, tweeting, and jammin to tunes with my Zune 4.0 software.
- Caffeine. You can never have too much of it. Unless you’re my old roomie Kevin who almost OD’d on it in college. Then, yeah, you can have too much…
- Snacks. That night it was mini-donuts. I’m pretty sure i was eating teddy grahams too.
- My scanner, which is barely offscreen… its for scanning. Naturally.
- Voice recorder. My handwriting is awful when I’m on the go and so I record ideas so I don’t lose them.
- Lotion and Hand Sanitizer. I hate dry skin and I’m a pseudo-OCPD person (and no, that ain’t a typo), so they both are needed. A lot.
- Subwoofer (and its speakers are on the desk). Gotta have tunes!!!
- Webcam/Microphone. The lappy has them built in. They come in handy for when I’m Ustreamin. Which is fun.
And, as Cori’s post says, it is now your turn, you awesome artists you. What do you have to have to get your draw on? Oh, what is that you say? You DON’T draw!?!? Well, what 10 items do you need to get your favorite hobby goin? Whether it be gaming, writing, blogging, crafts, or whatever… lets see what you need to get them creative juices goin. These were mine (minus the stuffed animals and other childish toys across the room from my desk), so what are yours?
(edit: let it be said that, if this becomes a trend, I was totally the originator cause this pic is from october 5. Cori’s post was like the 28th. Therefore, i win. hah! Take that Cori.)
My daily webcomic reading list seems to be exploding with a great deal of veracity. I consider that a good thing, mostly, because it gives me a chance to familiarize myself with other drawing/writing styles, get a better idea for formats and website designs, get a feel for how different genre’s use plot and character development, and its just fun to watch webcomics (and their artists/authors) grow and evolve with time. Therefore, its not only fun and a glorious waste of time, but it helps me and my comic endeavors quite a bit.
Even though I read a bunch of comics now, I still prefer to actually go to their individual sites to check content rather than subscribe via RSS feeds or other methods; it’s a little more of a hassle, but that way they get the hits, the ads on their site get another unique impression, and they can hopefully make some money they otherwise may not.
I also like checking their actual sites to see who is advertising where and how much its costing them on ProjectWonderful. If I see an interesting ad, I click it. And before judging based on that one landing page, I try to check out some of the other pages (and the archive if its a comic or blog site) to get a feel for what they’re doing and whether I like it or not. Some of my recent favorites have even been found this way! For some reason, it’s a really cool feeling to love a comic you find via an ad on a different comic’s site. Maybe its because I advertise my own comics on a few different sites with some regularity… I’d sure like to know if it pays off at all, and seeing that I’ve found sites thru ads is a sort of reassurance that it hopefully will.
Anyway, I write all this to say two things: 1) my blog has been somewhat neglected recently because I’ve spent my freetime either drawing or reading a ton of other sites archives; and 2) that because of these habits, I have started using my own “links page” on GN and B4B as a daily “to read” list so that any/every one can keep up on what I’m following regularly and check out ones they may not have heard of based on my judgment (which could either hurt or harm the comics I link to… depending on who you are and, well, how funny you are, I guess).
Because of the Xmas Storyline ending, my drawing skillz getting quicker and better, and because of the direction the story is starting to go (in my head at least) I’ve been working on how I want the B4B guys to look with more realistic, yet still cartoony hair. Here’s a pencil sketch I did of them based on that idea…
It needs work still, and I need to make it look more like the rest of the comic prolly (or make the rest of the comic look more like this), but I think its a step in the right direction. Billy and Randy’s hair don’t look the same. Will and George’s hair looks more feasable. And all their facial features are pretty much the same… just a bit updated and they fit more with their personalities (now that they’ve been established).
Thoughts?
If you stay up on my tweets, you’ll know that I get to work a lot of long shifts and get mucho overtime because of our unreliable breakfast hostesses. I guess they aren’t really “unreliable” because we can rely on at least one call in from each of them every goddamn week. It’s just a matter of which day, which excuse, and which person gets screwed over. So far, we’ve had one that was “fired” because of her just not showing up enough (but when she was here, she did a great job). We’ve had another that quit before she was even fully trained. And we have had another quit after a couple weeks because working two jobs is apparently too hard… none of us buy that though, since we all work other jobs on top of this one (but it doesn’t matter, cause she didn’t do a great job while here anyway).
So far, all of these people not showing up has screwed me over the most because its almost always on my shift, I’m the one that has to work my ass off to get breakfast out by 6am, and, yes, the managers get woken up a bit early and the morning desk person has to do some extra work and some possible cleanup, but I am usually asked to stay late. I’d love to say “no” to overtime, but getting paid time and a half for chatting with guests and keeping food fresh is almost too easy. I’d be retarded to turn that down… but at the same time, it sucks.
Yesterday a breakfast host called in because her kid was baby is sick, she hadn’t gotten any sleep, and she had a funeral to attend later in the day. She gave me several hours notice so it wasn’t an awful deal, I just had to rush because of a huge meeting we have going on at the hotel all week. The other breakfast host was scheduled for this coming morning, however, so I wasn’t worried about getting stuck with another 11-12 hour shift… but, upon arriving at work tonight, I found out that the other hostess had been in a car accident today and wasn’t going to be in for a few days.
With my current streak of luck, I’m betting that I’ll get to work another long shift today… oh, and did I mention that I am working a 6 day week currently? Yeah… thats a favor I’m pulling for the other night auditor because she didn’t request off the days she needed until the week she needed them.
I try not to use my blog or comics as a platform to complain about my life, because I hate reading about others petty issue, but I have been absolutely dumbfounded since graduating college, at the lack of work ethic and professionalism in the average person today. In working at a hotel for 1 year and 5 months, I have worked at two different hotels, and have worked with 12 breakfast hostesses. Of those twelve hostesses, only two of them have left the job because of a legit reason (one was becoming a nurse, the other’s husband was having serious health issues)… four of them quit before EVER working a full day as a breakfast hostess (that means they quit during training, without calling in to say they were quitting or wouldn’t be there any more)… three have left on their own accord for whatever reason… and the other three still have their jobs the last time I checked.
In that same span of time, I’ve seen 3 front desk workers be let go because they either sucked at the job or were unreliable, and I’ve seen a shitton of housekeepers come and go, but I don’t have as much direct relation with them, and their attendance and reliability doesn’t directly affect my job in a significant way. I guess what I’m getting at in this entire blog is: what is wrong with people today!?
I take my job seriously. Since I was 17 I’ve almost always had a job (with the exception of a summer where I had wrist surgery and was all gimped up) and before that I mowed lawns and helped clean up snow for neighbors. I’ve only called in sick twice: once was because I was hospitalized for several days with kidney stones, and the other time I was quarantined by my doctor because I had pneumonia, bronchitis, a sinus and upper respiratory infection, the flu, and they thought I might have spinal meningitis. How have their families, friends, and society failed so badly at raising responsible people? And what the hell do we do to fix it!?
Sure, I love overtime… but this is getting fucking rediculous.
(PS: in my mind, the title was supposed to be a Where’s Waldo reference. I doubt you got that. So this is your “laugh” sign lighting up and flashing.)
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Newest News I'm writing for GamerLimit now and will be doing a bunch of stuff as a Community Promoter over there as well. My first published post is here:
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