Kagerou Cast Lineup - 3

Still need to do Grims, Josh and a few other major ones--who have I forgotten?

Kagerou Cast Lineup - 2

Eleven more!

In Case You're Wondering...

Not my best work. I'll have to redraw Moko again when I'm not recording so I don't get stage fright and mess up.

Cintiq Progress and Art Post

In order to learn to use the Cintiq to its maximum advantage, as well as mastering as the Painter 8 interface, I decided to begin from the leftmost character in the Kagerou lineup sketch from yesterday, and draw one person at a time from start to finish. The upside to all this practice is that I'll be left with a great piece of Kagerou character reference, plus the art itself will be visible proof of the speed at which I adapted my skills to the new format. So far I'm surprised and delighted by the speed of improvement. By the time I hit #33 (the Black Angel) I should have a fairly decent idea of what the fuck I'm doing.

Using layers is new to me. Hell, the last time I had Painter was the 2001 version. Getting used to these new options on this new tablet will take a long time, and I'm not good with huge changes. So I'm going to keep going down that line, experimenting, trying new tools, til I'm comfortable with the setup and ready to expand into new and interesting fields using what I've learned.

Switching Kagerou to a Painter comic is a possibility, depending on how the style would change. I'd like to keep the cel shaded anime thing going as much as possible, but I would be happy to sacrifice that for a more organic look if I could do it justice. If it sped up production I'd just about have to at this point :D

But before I go counting comicky coup, I need to learn the basics like a good little newbie. No "I'll learn as I go!" crap, only to find out after years and years that I was doing everything the hard way the whole time. Nope, this time I'm going to put in as much time as it takes to acclimatize to the tools, then unleash the fury of technology upon the cities of my enemy once I'm good and skilled.

It will be tough, but I'm going to figure this shit out and make it my bitch. For one thing, it's redoubled my drive to better my skills. Also it's just plain fun to dick around with this awesome new toy. I've wanted a Cintiq since I was a kid and it was still science fiction, ever since that Supergirl movie where they would draw stuff in midair and make it come to life. Yum.

I spent all of today reprogramming the Cintiq's shortcut keys. My goal is to eliminate the need for a keyboard altogether by putting all the hotkeys on the tablet. This was doomed to failure since there are only ten buttons on the tablet itself, but then I discovered the Radial Menu and its amazing collapsing menu tree.

Now I've got every shortcut-able command in Painter mapped to the back-click button on the stylus, right down to turning the volume up or down on iTunes without touching the keys. For things that still need the keyboard, I use the XP Onscreen Keyboard.

Once that was done, I did it all over again for Corel Photo-Paint (which has different shortcut keys) and calibrated the monitor.

End result: ease of use is fucking unbelievable. My wrist is fucking killing me, but it's the ache I get from drawing for hours and hours, not the one I got every time I used the Graphire. No carpal pain or finger numbness after something like 12 hours of on-and-off drawing.

I do wish I'd gotten the larger tablet, but it would have meant waiting another year to save up the cash. I will be able to afford it much sooner if I use the 12" model to do commissions. Then I can trade up.

Other than the art, my life is in shambles. Forgot to pay a bill, now I owe $300 in medical expenses because I lost coverage. Lost my cell phone (found tonight at least), lost my medical card, ran out of medication and can't renew the scrip (which may explain the rest of my sudden fail, actually). Not sleeping well. Room's a mess. Housework is crazy backed up, and I haven't talked to my lawyer in months. I know it's going to bite me in the ass later, but I'm avoiding everything as much as possible. It's sort of congealed into a giant katamari of suck, and I don't negotiate with terrorists. The only thing I've done well all month is get my Etsy orders out on time.

But all of this is OK, because suck happens. The trick is to break the katamari of suck back down into small, manageable pieces so that it no longer has the power to intimidate. So tomorrow I'll pick a small task from the failbin and start by fixing it. Disability schmisability, I'm a powerhouse of radness. Because why? Because digital watercolor.

Artist's Representation of the Cutest Thing In The Universe.

Art Post

This sucker kept me up all night and blew my carefully cultivated schedule to little bitty bits, but I am so immensely pleased by the product of my mania that basically I refuse to feel bad about it :)

Art Post!

Goodness but I'm in a 3-D mood lately.


WIP: Bust of Queen Tcaolin

I'm really happy with how my first bust came out. Beginner's luck maybe.




Petrified Mermaid

And of course, more crystal porn. I've got some serious plans for this geosculpture technique.

ART POST!

The God Tcaolin


Shiny-Ass Keychains


Hello Kitty Buttons


Magnets: Autumn 2008


Buttons: Autumn 2008 VI


Moodame

Also, I've updated my Etsy store to put stuff on sale and added a few new items (like those peacock keychains and a couple magnets).

Tomorrow: Shrink appointment, working on the comic and VOTING. You guys are voting too, right? Riiiiight?

Art Post and Lip Service

Meanwhile, I'm having a bit of a canine crisis. The Captain's muzzle fur has thinned around his lips, and while it appeared to be growing back, the other day I noticed that he's actually lost all the pigmentation under his nose as well. He doesn't seem to be sick, but it's freaking me out for obvious reasons.



I need to take him to the vet, but money is tight right now due to wantonly spending it all on medicine and therapy. Supposedly I'll be getting some of it back since the MinnCare is retroactive to August 22, but I don't really want to put the vet visit off.

So starting now, for a limited time, I'm taking donations for the Captain's vet bills in lieu of the usual Kagerou tip jar. Any money left over after he's taken care of will be placed in a shoebox marked "SO THE DOG DOESN'T DIE" and that box will be sealed inside another box, which will in turn be placed on a high shelf covered with crawly black widow spiders and biter-snakes, to ensure that the funds will not be embezzled for any other purpose.

If you donate five bucks or more, I'll send you one of these horrible little trinkets:



You can choose either a pin-back or a magnet. Stab friends! Destroy hard drives! This badge will serve as proof for all eternity that you own a $5 share of Luka's dog. If you bring the button with you to future conventions, I'll give you free stuff.

Plus when I die and become a postmortem icon of the outsider art community, they'll be really collectible and you WILL get laid for owning one.

If you donate more than $5 and want multiple Captain buttons, just drop a line with your payment letting me know.

Meanwhile, the subject of this post is sprawled out in Best Chair without a care in the world. I think he's murdering something in his sleep--I can hear his fangs clicking together from across the room.

LOL DONGS

Was watching the second One Piece movie with Rah the other day, and a particular scene cried out to me.

So I rewired it.

FAP FAP FAP

Chores and Art, Art and Chores

I spent the week doing real-world things that I've been putting off for ages. For example, I obtained a 100% rating on One Piece: Unlimited Adventure. Wait, that doesn't count. Let me start over with my grown-up words.

First I called and quit my Audible account. I got tired of not having the money, then having it only to have their automatic billing monkey take the money one day before the month ends so that I never get my books before my credits reset. Believe it or not, the final straw for me came when I noticed they now brag to potential new customers that the monthly credits do not expire. I could have been happy about this, or exasperated. I chose the latter.

Audible makes it so you can't cancel the account online, but they don't mention the procedure anywhere on the site. I finally found the number on somebody's "quit Audible" rant/tutorial from like a year ago. When I finally got to a human being, all he wanted was my username and my email address, and it took maybe ten seconds total.

No wonder they keep the quit procedure so hidden. Angry ninjas could have called and canceled my account at any time, and I would have been powerless against their attack. Thanks, Audible, for being so concerned with my account security!

But it's done. $21 bucks a month saved by depriving myself of the joy of reading, woo!

Next I got busy wrestling with my Anytime Fitness account since the great outdoors has become my gym of late, but it turns out the contract won't let me out until September. Which is right around the time I was planning to sign up again for the winter, so that sucks.

And then I mailed off all the buttons and raffle prizes I've been sitting on like a big fat dumbass, and then the week was over and I hadn't done anything on the comic. It never rains but it pours, boys and girls.

Anyway! I have a lot of work to do today, so we now return to my regularly scheduled comicking-like-a-mofo.

So much for Sundays off D:

Oh yeah, and I finished the new sketchbook last night. The second montage from the book is now posted on DA, so go see go see!

Art Post - Do You Want Candy?

Posting it here because the DA version will make you log in to view it.



IT IS DELICIOUS CANDY YOU MUST CLICK IT


Yep. I blew today off and did this atrocious art-for-fun instead. Sometimes the muse just takes over, you know?

Luka Makes Emo Arts!

I CAN HAS FAMOUS NAO PLZ?

Art Post Again!

Big one this time. Click for hyooj, as usual.







It's foggy and smells like spring outside. I almost don't want to go to bed, but I'm tuckered. I spent all afternoon making stuff for studio orders, biking the dog, and drawing two pics I'm actually proud of. I think I can go to bed without feeling like I wasted the day.

Shinies From Luka's Sketchbook

Click for huge!

Kagerou Keychains, Part Deux!

Goodness I'm productive when I'm knocked off my ass with disease. Four years now I've been putting off making these keychains, and now the floodgates have burst right on open.

I made updates to the order page to add our still-functioning PO Box address. Now people who refuse to sacrifice their personal safety to the demon Pa'y-Pa'l can share the addiction that is horrifyingly shiny keychainage.

I Should Really Get Some Sleep

They say that every dog has his day. But humans only get 15 minutes.

Is this some kind of twisted evolutionary prank? Or maybe whoever crunched the numbers was careful to convert the results into dog-time.

This kind of shit really digs at me when it's four in the morning.

Here, have a WIP from the secret project of mystery while I go fall over into bed:

Art Post - 13 Lunatic Pileup!

Won't be much longer until the long blah dry-spell of Kageroulessness ends. I've started having honest-to-god DREAMS where I'm working on the comic and overflowing with happiness about it, which is kind of amusing considering how burnt out I got juggling art with real life crap all this fall. The major project is going pretty well, although I can still afford to be working harder on it than I am. It's going to be awesome when finished, though.

Anyhow, on to the point of the post! I took a break from the flurry of inking and panic this week in order to finish a pic that's been hanging around on my hard drive for a couple of months.

Click for make big:



Stay tuned! There will be more comic than you can shake a stick at, very soon.

Art Post - Visit (1)

I needed to try something new and get a bit of background practice in, so I wrenched myself away from comicking and playing video games today, dug out my photo reference folder, and got to work making with the spooky.



The original photo was of a collapsed roof in a Pennsylvania ghost town.