Cottage Shenanigans

Exaggerated re-tellings of the weekend before last, where I had an absolute blast hanging out at my friend's cottage.

Annie

9:00

Rude Awakening

Some mornings just start all wrong.

12:45

Annie

Ice verses Fire

I haven't really had any time to work on something for myself lately; I've been so busy doing work for school, I forgot what it felt like to just do something fun.

That being said, I sat down tonight after classes, and I drew this. I really liked it, it turned out cute and made me smile, even though I made it.

Lenore on the left is Jessica's character, who I've only drawn once before, while Ninja is mine. Lenore has some hidden magic abilities, over ice? I think? I'm not entirely sure to be honest, but she has magic powers. Ninja has powers over fire, but Ninja isn't able to control her powers- her powers were latent for most of her life, so she never learned the appropriate discipline to control it.

I know in a fight there aren't many people who would stand much of a chance against Ninja, simply because she can't control her flames. They get away from her, and she is immune to the heat. I didn't want to draw Ninja wiping Lenore of the map, so I thought about this cute little interaction of their opposite abilities instead.

Yay, cute things. I miss drawing.

Annie

9:47

No Touching

Ninja doesn't share.

I've been watching "Snow White and the Huntsman" while working on this.

And ahhahahahaha, it's not a very good movie.

Pretty.

But really not very good. It lacks any kind of direction at all.

But Thor. With a thicker accent.

Beautiful.

Annie

6:46

Rough Day?

So I haven't been here in a while!

I was caught up at my workshop that I attended for a month. I learned so much while I was there and I made wonderful friends. I'm sad to have left, as it was a wonderful, wonderful experience, but I did miss my home a lot.

Especially my cat and two best friends!

However, I came back and immediately jumped back into work with full time hours plus overtime. It was a stressful jump, and I still haven't gotten back into the swing of it. It's hard to wake up in the morning, and I spend a good half hour trying to psych myself up for the eleven hour shift ahead. I wake up, and tell myself, "Dude. Today is going to be the best day ever, I'm going to make sure of it."

Well I hit a road block today that knocked me square on my face, and I lost it a little.

I came back home to be with my room mate and my cat, and we're having an evening of television. Here's an artistic interpretation of my day.

Also me utilizing absolutely nothing of what I learned at Imaginism.

It's been a really stressful couple weeks since coming back. I've screwed up a number of things that were going good for me, and I've been working lots of long hours and having a hard time keeping my hold on everything. I broke a bit, but I'm putting it all back together, haha.

Figured it's been a while since I made fun of myself.

It's so close, it's so very close, I can see the light.

Thanks for bearing with me, everyone. It'll be over soon!

Annie

7:45

These are my Friends.

This happens on a very frequent basis. And when it's not relocating me because I'm conveniently situated on wheels, it's chasing me down the hallway screaming "I'M GONNA KILL YOU" because I threw a pencil at them.

Aw yeah.

Also, bad moods are contagious.

I like these little comics. They're a very fun way to get ideas down and out.

Annie

12:16

Farewell, Old Friend.

The other day, my dear friend Corrin came up to see me in Oakville! I don't get to see Crin a lot, but I've seen her twice this month, and what must be three times this entire year. Whoof, who could believe it?

After watching Doctor Who for a couple hours, we decided to go to the mall, because the mall was within walking distance, and the mall had a Davids Tea. While we were there, we decided to go into H&M, on my request. I was looking for a ridiculously baggy sweater, but instead Crin pointed out a black coat that could be a good replacement for the one I was wearing.

I love my coat so much, I've had it for almost a decade and it's gone through a lot. I had the zipper replaced, one of the snaps replaced, one of the buckles snapped in two, the pocket was half torn off, I put my hand through the lining that morning, the elbows were threadbare, the wind tore right through it, and the cuff was getting steadily shorter as it frayed to nothing and I repaired it with billions of stitches of black thread.

But I loved my coat. I'd had it for years and I got it from my dad as a birthday present when I was fourteen, along with a Blink 182 album with a parental advisory. I looked at the new black coat, and I looked at the price, and it wasn't bad- but did it really matter? This coat had serviced me well since I was a child. Then I saw a red coat. And I rushed over to the red coat and pulled it on. And then I saw a longer, teal coat. I abandoned the red coat in favour of the teal one. I looked at the price. It was fifty percent off.

I caved.

I bought the teal coat.

Leaving the store, I was still carrying my worn, beaten, loyal coat.

I wanted to donate it, but Crin pointed out there was a trash can I could put it in.

I have never found it so difficult to part with something I own.

My poor coat is now gone, but I have a beautiful teal coat to replace it.

R.I.P. Coat. You gave me years and years of loyal service.

Annie

2:39

Cold Cold Breakweek.

I caught myself talking to the cats today.

They didn't humour me. At all.

But I felt like drawing something from it! And so I did. Kittens, kittens all around!!

By the way- BREAK WEEK YAAAAAY!!!

Annie

10:44

Ga Haha

And now I have a title page! Wow, I've never seen myself get this far. I'm rather impressed.

As per usual with everything I work on; I just made a big mess and had a lot of fun painting it. Yippee!

Welcome to Rise.

The title page.

I'll just pretend Ninja has perfectly normal length arms.

Thar you go guys, you finally know what the giant junk heap is for; you know, that one I was drawing just this morning?

Why did I pick such a crappy setting for this story? There's so much garbage floating around.

Also; LCD colours BURN LIKE HELL FIRE. I matched my CRT to match my printer, but I guess I didn't accurately match up my LCD to my CRT-- tried the best I could.

I need to go to bed.

12:47

Annie

Are You Ready For This?

Secret: I'm not.

Ever since I started drawing way back iiiin... when I was little, I always wanted to make a comic.

I never did. Because it was too much work, and I'm as lazy as a pile of fish bones. However, the other day, I came across an old sketchbook of mine with a few drawn pages in it. I thought, "You know, I should really try that again." and so I bought another mini sketchbook, plastered a piece of tape on it, scribbled "Rise" on it in marker, and- booted up my PC and started typing.

I never liked the idea of planning things, but at the same time I never liked the idea of just diving in and going at it. Doing things without thinking is usually my downfall, so I kept putting it off. Until yesterday; where I wrote out ten pages worth of... well, pages. I scribbled out some page layouts- and I tried actually drawing it. On full sized paper. I decided my lazy-man's method of "smaller sketchbook" wasn't going to cut it. After drawing, I actually sucked it up and inked. After that, I decided, "Why the hell not-" and kept barreling right on through till I finished painting it.

Will this be a consistent thing? Ha, when am I ever consistent? But, I'm pleased with myself, as this is probably the furthest I've ever gotten. I've had scribbles, I've had... more scribbles, and I've had the beginnings of novels- but never a full, inked and coloured page.

Kudos to me.

The only think I'm not too keen of- when it comes to comics, is that it also requires a huge amount of dedication. Not that they aren't my children, and I don't love them to death- but there are other things that matter to me, and I don't want to brush them off because of one project. I write, I draw random things- I hang out with friends- it's all in good fun, yeah?

Not to mention I'm very self conscious with my artwork, especially when people I know are doing the same thing and all I can ever think about is how awful I've done or.. or... etc.

Ah, right, page- This is the introduction to Rise. A story of a girl and her brother/guardian. I haven't really decided on a style yet- or anything, really, but, what ever, I figured it was time to try doing something.

11:44

Annie

Oh Look, It's Legible Now!

Sleepy. Think I'm going to go to bed now.

I got this idea last night while I was thinking about one of my characters. Sherlock is a sweetie who I've come to care a lot for, and every since I decided to use him in my layout assignment, he's been on my mind. I was thinking about his history, which I had to seriously think about for the first time- I always knew his mother was a gorgon, but as to HIS backstory, I was never sure.

I discovered last night that Sherry has two crazy sisters- both of them older than him, though not by much. He was born in a nest of three, and was lucky not to get killed within the first ten minutes of hatching.

I've never heard of a male gorgon in my research, though I know gorgons have mated with humans before (Though, I think Medusa was pregnant before she was cursed to be a gorgon-). I decided that gorgons are plenty now, a species more than specifically three sisters (two, after Medusa's death), and Sherry's mother had two girls, who took the gorgon blood of their mother, and one boy, who took the human blood of his father. He still has stone-eye abilities, and he has an extended life due to his lineage- but he looks perfectly human.

I have a lot more coming! If I work on them. Never really felt inspired to work on something like this; I wanted to see if I could tell a story without dialogue, as well as see how comfortably I can work within panels. Since my last attempt, I can work surprisingly well within panels, and found most of this very fun to do.

I'm still unhappy with a lot of it, it's not as dynamic or as dramatic or clear as I would have liked, but hey, it's an experiment, and it's for fun. It's on five 8.5x11 pieces of paper, and you can see the page number in the top left corner. Reads from left to right, up to down. Hooray!

Poor Sherry, his sisters are insane. They get more sentient (I'm just guessing that's the word I want) as time goes on, but they're still very cruel and violent, especially to their youngest and weakest sibling.

Poor Sherry baby!

Annie

1:54