I’m going to be on vacation for while… which is to say, I’m taking a vacation from my vacation. LOGIC! The result? Updates could be even MORE sporadic than they currently are. Having said that, they could also be much more frequent! Flip a coin. Life will be back to normalish come August, so… yeah… hope everybody’s summers are going well. Unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere. In which case, I hope you’re enjoying your winter (god, I miss winter).

MJ

I’ll try to get an update done by the weekend… but if it’s not going well come Friday night, it may well be the last update until I can find myself a new computer. This one has become unusable.

Sorry.

MJ

UPDATE: I’m not enjoying this. Not one bit. Not one tiny, minuscule, negligible, little bit. This is, so far, the worst comic-drawing experience of my short career. There are soooooooo many things I could bitch complain about right now, it’s not even funny.  Honestly, I ditched OS X for a performance boost, and ALMOST got it. I’ve disabled abso-bloody-lutely EVERY eye-candy feature Ubuntu had to offer and the Mini’s STILL giving me grief. Not to mention the total lack of accessible configuration options for my not-quite-supported tablet. I’d go back to OS X and Painter, but – in reality – I’d be no better off.  The last system update resulted in many a Painter freeze-up, which ties the frustration level reached by laggy brushstrokes and misalignment of pen-tip (by, I kid you not, a centimetre in places… the variation almost makes it worse… as if it’s teasing me: “Oh, you want an exact alignment?  Well, just let us adjust for parallax, and calculate the tilt-effect… factor in the gravitational pull of the moon, annnnnnd…. THERE YOU GO! ALIGNED! (Just don’t go anywhere away from the centre, or the lower right side of the, screen. KTHXBAI!)). I know. I KNOW! I shouldn’t be complaining. I’ve got a beautiful tablet, award-winning software, and a computer that I’m sure many people enduring tough times would be overjoyed to have! THAT DOESN’T MATTER, THOUGH! I CAN’T DO MY WORK! Not at the level I want to, at least.  I mean, if you (or I) were happy with stick figures lacking colours or shades, then FINE! I could do that.  Y’know what? I think I will. The next Felix Marcus strip will be stick-figures. It will be glorious…ly bad. GAAAAAH!!! It’s my own damned fault, though, isn’t it?! I mean, I had a perfectly… well, maybe not perfectly functional laptop, not even a year ago… what’d I do? I screwed it up. It fell, it broke, it became a waste of money. Repair it? Yeah, for about the price of a new (fully functioning) desktop, sure… and even that was by last year’s standards. Of course this would all be nothing if I’d actually WORKED this summer (last summer probably would’ve been nice, too). Moral of the story? Don’t get a laptop if you’re a klutz (alternate moral: get a summer job, ya dope!).

Breathe…. okay. I’m going to get back to drawing. Ignore any yelling you might hear.

UPDATED UPDATE: I gave up on Linux. Some other time, perhaps, but for now I’m going back to the combination that at least yielded results. I re-installed OS X Tiger, much to my chagrin. There are many caveats to this return, which can mostly be summed up as: This computer is for work, and work alone! No iTunes, no games, nothing but the comic! I’ve also – once again – reduced the size of the pre-formatted work-page, bringing it ever closer to the unholy 800px (width) mark. Thanks for your continued support and patience! Also, just so you know, the current page has been written, planned, laid-out, and sketched… on to the colouring!

Okay, so there’s a reason for the silence… and it is:

COMPUTER ISSUES!! (My favourite excuse!)

Recent system updates left my poor ol’ mini virtually unusable. I whined and complained about this for a week, then decided (yesterday) that I would take action against my oppressor (namely, obsolete technology)! I gave OS X Tiger the boot, and replaced it with Hardy Heron (Ubuntu 8.04).

I’ve spent the past 6-or-so hours trying to get my bloody tablet to cooperate with the replacement OS, and just now got a reasonably positive response. I don’t know how to configure pressure sensitivity, though there are forum topics dedicated to such things.

Whatever, my computer is now usable, and my tablet is responding. My art-style is probably going to be taking a MASSIVE dive as I re-learn GIMP, but hey, that’s all part of the experience (lies I tell myself before bed).

So… look forward to an update in the foreseeable future!

MJ

EDIT: Okay, so the current update is going well! I mean, it’s still going to look like garbage, but all things considered, I’m quite pleased with how it’s turning out. I hope to have it posted by tomorrow morning! I’m also happy  to report that the rabbit’s storyline is almost done! Stay tuned!

Hi all,

Just writing to let you know that I’m purposely skipping this week’s update. It’s the family-visiting time of the season.

Also, I’ve picked up a new bit of illustration software, TabletDraw. So far, I’m really enjoying it! It’s a lot less of a resource-hog than Painter, and seems to track my pen-movements in an agreeable-enough fashion. I don’t know if it’s going to be useful for the comics… I might have to figure out some sort of multi-program workflow. Great for lines, though!

Sadly, my computer is dying. It has begun to crash/shutdown without provocation (my guess is the Mac equivalent of hyperthermia). It’ll still get the job done, I’m sure.. I’m just going to have to save compulsively!

That’s all for now,

MJ

Rather than going in to each update with the “I’ve gotta get this done, preferably in one shot!”  feeling, I’m going to start intentionally breaking up the workflow. So, for example, script and storyboard on one day, planning and sketches the next, colours and inks the third, and shades and text on the last!

Today’s goal? Script and storyboard (I thought I had this done already, but then discovered that had I lost my notebook).

We’ll see how this goes. I’m already worried that it’ll just deteriorate into me spending an entire day on my tablet… sigh.

MJ

UPDATE #1: It is oppressively hot, here in Kingston, and my patience for my computer’s ineptitude  is at an all time low. Wouldn’t you know it, said computer is giving me new kinds of grief! Yesterday, during sketching, Painter crashed three times! THREE! This is turning into a battle. If I get many problems today, I might just abandon this week’s update and work on other art instead.

UPDATE #2: Okay, so my tablet and Painter decided to play nicely today, so I managed to get the planning/sketching stage completed. I’m currently debating a revert to my line-defined style (for the sake of getting an update done in a timely manner).. we’ll see!

UPDATE #3: I think I may have been a bit overambitious with this page. I *should* have the art done by this afternoon, but oy, it’s a bit of a task.

UPDATE #4: Well, I’ve been taking many little newsbreaks throughout the day (what with Obama’s press conference on the oil disaster, and Calderon’s address to parliament), but the art is *mostly* done. I’m on to the characters now. This points towards either a late-night, or perhaps early morning update. The funny thing is, my sleep schedule is the exact opposite of last year’s problem. Instead of going to bed later and later (resulting in later and later wake-ups), I’m going to bed earlier and earlier (resulting in, you guessed it, earlier and earlier wake-ups). This, of course, I blame on my photography. I’m sure the situation will be rectified shortly.