Komiyan

Oh gawd I've been nominated for Outstanding Fantasy too @_@ This is quite insane, but also very flattering. Thanks, guys :)

On a real world note, I'm disappearing tomorrow for another few days in Manchester for my Nan's funeral. I know I've not mentioned it here before, I didn't want to look like I was attention grabbing or anything.. Just want to let people know where I'll be. I've volunteered to speak, but it's really hard to find the words.. I'm glad I've got my family around me, and John to comfort me.

Anyway.. Uni is going well, got my classes in sequential art coming up- can't wait to give that a shot, it'll be fun to learn new tricks. I bought myself a tablet with my birthday money, so I'll be practising with that soon (though I probably shouldn't play with it til my birthday... ahh, who am I kidding..?).

Rollercoaster month, really. Some nice ups, and some terrible.. not-ups. Bring on February, really..

Haha, Darken got nominated for a Webcomic Choice Award for character rendering. I am at once confused and overjoyed. Thanks to whoever suggested me for that, it was nice of you to throw me a thought :) I haven't a chance against Lackadaisy and Templar Arizona, but it's still sorta nice to see me up there.

I'm a bit confused by the nominees for use of colour, though... VG Cats? What the heck? Sure, it's coloured, but the colour really doesn't add to the feel of the strip as a whole, which is what I thought that award was for. And as much as I like Penny Arcade, it really doesn't need a WCCA, we already know it's king. I'm not sure about some of the choices for environment design.. I'll have a tough time picking between Aldus and Gunnerkrigg.

It's wonderful to see so many comic genesis comics up there- good to get some recognition at last! Told you we don't all suck.

Hated the last project :( Packing design does not become me.
( Sucky Drink Label under the cut.. )
So I got a comment on my tagboard claiming that there was 'chat' about my doing a course being a scam. That's one convoluted bastard of a scam, let me tell you! I even moved to Sunderland to support my little jape! Hohoho, I am the master of moneymaking, oh yes.

Seriously, though, that's retarded. If I was a scamming webcomic artist I'd say my computer blew up and boo hoo I need a superduper new one with a decent graphics card and oh hey fund my WoW habit please. Then i would go to Panama. I also wouldn't make good on my extra pages offer- Two of those to go, and they will indeed go. I'm in a bit of a writing funk lately, but I think I've snapped out of it now. Fingers crossed, anyway.

I got a firework fired at me today! Damn chavs. They missed, but nearly hit a car, which can't have been fun for the driver. Got out of the way pretty sharpish, enough to not get singed :)
Finished another project today, this time a cover for Animal Farm.
( Pic (and pig) under the cut... )

Fuck yes. Starbuck cut her hair.


I cheered.

We currently have an upaid lodger. He's sat in a tupperware with catfood in it.




..yeah. We're looking after a friend's turtle for a few days. He's called Guy, which I've been informed is Chinese for shell, and he's quite a nice little creature. i've gotta admit, I didn't really see the fun in turtle owning, cause you can't cuddle them or walk them or whatever, but he's really fun to watch. He climbs up onto a floating bit of wood like someone trying to climb out of a pool without using the ladder, then once he's finally up there he surveys his tank with an air of 'this is mine, this is.' Then he plops back into the water with a louder splash than you'd have thought a wee turtle can make. He also eats catfood, which I wouldn't have guessed at.

Class is awesome, my last project seemed to go down really well, so woo! The next one is the do a cover for Animal Farm, so I'm re-reading it now. I was a little depressed at how few people in the class had read the book, and a bit more when I had to explain communism to people. Ah well.

Cazparty on Saturday! Wheee

WE FINALLY HAD A LIFE MODEL.

I have spent most of this morning drawing some guy's bum. He wouldn't bloody turn around, I just had various angles of his bum. Not very interesting, but it actually feels like figure drawing now.

Now all I need to do is finish off this bloody acrylic mess for tomorrow, do a bunch of donation sketches, about 5 commissions, and oh yeah! my comic. Hahahahaaaargh.

oh god more wasps. I suspect there's a nest somewhere, but damned if I can find where they're getting in.. I'll just be paranoid til they're all dead in winter. Brr.

Children of Men is an excellent film. The setting felt like V for Vendetta crossed with Half Life, all the actors put in really good turns, and the ending wasn't as bleak as I'd worried it would be.

Oh, and saw a new episode of Battlestar. Oh god, Odama, shave for fuck's sakes.

Commission #1 done!

Now time to work on the rest.. and tomorrow's page, and my homework :D

wasps are fuckers. Was having a nap with john, woke up and my elbow was hurting.. john said his arm hurt too, a really sharp pain. I stood up to run it under the tap, and John informed me in a fairly placid manner that there was a wasp on my back. It stung me again before he managed to get it off.

I now have a frozen garlic bread on my elbow, and a hatred for wasps. I'd never been stung before, thus was ambivilent, but now I just plain hate them.

But hey, now I know I'm not allergic!

I couldn't make my pasta yesterday cause one of my housemates was boiling two live crabs on the stove. Their legs were moving as he poked them with a wooden spoon.

D:

My head hurts with tired. They denied the bursary, I'm gonna go plead with them tomorrow.
http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y83/komiyan/donations/

Hooray new donation sketches!

My list of stuff to draw is odd.

-Today's page
-`a sketch of Gort or something'
-A ninja emu in spurs (!)
-A wood elf
-A thunderbird (not the puppet)
-A goblin and a dude who looks like Richard Hammond.
-K-Dawg's drawing, he knows what it is!

I also have to research the letter N.. The life drawing class was cool, but they were sorta missing a model :/ Might get a proper go at it next week. We also have to buy our own drawing boards, bah!

Donation count is at £320, £400 after I get some commissions done, for those who wanted to know progress.. cause I'm too busy to make a progress bar :( So that's three extra pages, four after I'm done with commissions. Woo!

I've whined enough about my student loan problems this week to not bother going over them in my LJ too, so check www.darkencomic.com if you've not heard and are for some reason interested in finanical problems :p

I've got life drawing class tomorrow. I'm worried I will giggle at the naked folk, as I have not done life drawing before. I will likely avoid drawing wangs for for few lessons, cause I'm a wuss. With wang-fear.
Also, I grabbed the new Electric Six album. I'm not as into it as Senor Smoke, but I think it's growing on me. They're well worth a listen if you like overdone guitars and silly lyrics.

Major major router problems with the new house, but we're all up and running now. I was scared for my internets. It would come crashing down without me.
Had my first talk for my course, just got the rest of the traditional fresher's week running around and signing forms to go. I'm actually far too enthused about this degree. It's weird, part of our intro thing was that we had to draw each other with charcols, and everyone just.. froze up. We all panicked and mumbled about how we can't actually draw, but eventually reluctantly put burned-stick to paper and started, but it took a good few minutes.

Artists are weird.

I just fixed my scanner by kicking it rather hard. I didn't think that method actually worked..

1 0.16% Gort/Komiyan slash
1 0.16% deformed mutilated baby
1 0.16% mink underwear
1 0.16% violent balloon animals

INTERNET D: Really, honestly, I hope I'm not one of the top Google hits for mutilated babies. That would not be cool.

I love non-update days. Yesterday was a Tuesday, so from getting home at 5 til 8am today, I pretty much just slept and slept and slept. Oh, and watched Prison Break (I'm interested to see how long I can suspend disbelief for- the breaking out was fine, but a vet sewing a guy's hand back on? Uhm..). Then slept some more. New Lazy Grinders, this is what you're getting yourself into, you know..

Other stuff- I start at Sunderland on Monday, doing an Illustration and Design degree. I am positively terrified, but also can't wait, which is a very weird mix. My plan is not to be an eternal student, I promise.. That's just a lovely side effect.
Now, I'm going to go to the last three days of my temp job. Fwee!

http://www.keenspot.com/
Hey look, there's me. This feels like being a step closer to living the 'drawing for money' dream, so hoorah. Shame I did that whole 'English' thing, eh?

So for those of you still playing along at home-

Still living in Durham, but in an apartment with my boyfriend John. Working a rubbish job with alright pay in order to save up for the big fancy dream of journeying around America, which is supposed to be occuring halfway through June this year, which I really can't wait for. Still drawing, in fact possibly too much, but it's resulting in a fair chunk of people reading my comic, which surprised me and such. Civ 4 is a good game. City of Villians is not. I graduated! Not sure how. My dog is very ill which makes me very sad. In general, though, currently a happy type of person, future is looking bright, etc. I've cut out the soppy bits cause no-one wants to hear that, but yes. happy person.

I should have put this in bullet points...