Month: January 2014

and so it ends not with a bang but a whimper…

This first 30 day challenge is over… 30 drawings in 30 days.  What has it taught me.  A lot.  Not as much about drawing, but more about time management.  I can do a drawing a day, some aren’t as great as others.  Some I actually like and think they could lead to stories or build characters.  I know I have a long way to go and as I learned when I first started out on my geek odyssey, the more I draw the better I get, subtly with little nuances.  This drawing actually is a rough idea for something I need to have done by Sunday.  I still don’t know if this will be the final design, but it did get me thinking.  The other thing is I was bouncing around in meetings until around 8:30.  So to get this drawing done, I stopped off at an art store and picked up a pad and some pencils (I strangely enough had a pencil sharpener with me).  I did the initial drawing (along with some rough sketches) during one of my meetings.  While I enjoyed adding this to my day, I think if I am to continue, I might not go all the way to coloring or even inking.  Drawing was enjoyable, finishing sometimes became more time consuming.

The truth of this 30 day challenge was this it wasn’t my only 30 day challenge.   I wanted to try a couple different things and being impatient and a little ADD (Squirrel!) I decided to try a few- something I won’t be repeating.  Two were adding something to my day, and one was taking something away.  Drawing and drinking a large glass of juice were added.  Thank you to my brother Mike and his wife Erika for talking about Trader Joe’s cranberry juice (definitely an acquired taste).  Seems silly to have to challenge yourself to drink a large glass of juice each day, but I wanted to make sure that I had something healthy at least every day, so a large glass of juice each day.  Today I’m drinking that juice as I write this, most days I would drink it before rushing off to school.  So what have taken away for the last 30 days… I decided to not drink alcohol for 30 days (maybe that how I could draw for 30 days).  As an adult, I wanted to see how that would change how I do things.  Not much change that I could see.  Although going out was strange, since I tended to only order water.  Health wise I figure it helped a bit and I did lose some weight which has been nice.  I actually have one more day to go on this since I messed up at the beginning. And that’s why I really like the 30 day challenges instead of a resolution if you mess up, you can start over.

So 30 days, 30 drawings- which one was your favorite?  I’ll start another challenge once I finally finish all the ones from this month & figure out which ONE from my list I think I should try.

One more day?  One day more? Really?  Wow… almost there. Can’t get cocky since I still could trip at the finish line.

Today’s drawing is a little practice for that art show I mentioned a few drawings ago… this one deals with Sir Cecil’s Aero Simian Corps  that battled in the Great War against the Mechanical Men from the East…   I like some parts of this drawing but need to tweak others…  I need to have a final drawing ready by Sunday. At least I think I’ve got the monkey wrench pretty close.

Welcome to the 27th Century!  All right, maybe the 27th drawing…nothing too fancy here.  I decided to play around in greyscale and add just a touch of color.  I started off My Geek Odyssey this way and realized that adding grey took almost as much time as color so why not just do the comic in color? Tomorrow Mother Nature has thrown some more extreme temperatures our way so I’ll be home catching up on some things included in that list are drawings so as long as Hemi doesn’t decide he needs my undivided attention I hope to be productive.

As we prepare for another wonderful winter week, probably filled with 2 hour delays or a snow day or two, I started working on some ideas for a banner for my upcoming convention appearances…  I began with a few ideas and went instead with this one.  I call this “Cecil’s version of armchair caching”.

For those who do not geocache, armchair caching is basically like being an armchair quarterback.  You sit around and instead of actually caching, you find a geocache somewhere in the world and log it as if you actually found it.  Cecil doesn’t believe in armchair caching… he must see the cache and sign the log or he doesn’t claim it.

As we reach the end of this challenge, it is getting a little more difficult.  Mostly it’s about just finding the time to draw.  I’m behind on things like this comic, or finishing the comic for FTF Geocacher.  Fortunately for me,  the weather looks horrible for the weekend so I should be able to take the next two days and get those done.

As for today’s drawing- a while ago (not sure, a few years maybe) I thought about doing a comic about fairy tale characters attending a school.  I liked the idea but with “Fables,” “Once Upon a Time,” “Grimm” and other fairy tale based properties I figured someone had already done it.  Then I started reading things like JL8, so I moved on.  I still might try it sometime, but tonight (with “Grimm” playing in the background) had the desire to draw the red hood… Fine, Little Red Riding Hood- I thought about having her wearing a Joker t-shirt, and jeans.  Maybe next time.