Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Silver Lining

It's our 25th Wedding Anniversary!
So here are 25 views of us happy together.

























Saturday, October 15, 2016

Sketchy Job

I've been at my new job for about two and a half months now and am only finally starting to get enough work to keep me busy. It's not that it's slow at work, just the opposite in fact. The shop is operating on a skeleton staff and there really hasn't been time to show me the ropes, so I don't have much to do.

I also have a small, crowded desk, right next to two of the tech work stations and no cubicle walls to block their view of what I'm doing, so I cannot blatantly do my own stuff. I do a lot of clipboard held Sudoku (with official looking paperwork as the top level) and sneak sketches.

I have almost enough clear space on my desk to hold a half sheet of paper. And only because I have my computer pushed back. Half a sheet also easily slips under the keyboard for a quick hide. I have been doing sketching on half sheets of paper to keep myself from getting too bored.

Below are a few examples of these. I started with just random whatever and then went to themes. I tried my hand at practicing drawing characters by the late Luisa Felix to post on her remembrance Facebook page. I worked on designs for a couple of my own characters, Athena, Big Bug and Atlas, and this past week started doing scenes from the Untold Tales of Atlas.







Sunday, June 5, 2016

Kreation Stories

 Today I will run down exactly how I did one particular Samurai Slate story.


 First I decided I wanted to try using musical instruments for a theme. I listed as many as I could think of. Then I started jotting down puns I could think of using them. Eventually a plot came out of the different ideas and I wrote that out. I have done enough scripts for Sam that I have a pretty good idea how long they can be without having to break it down. The turning point is when I have both a starting and an ending point.



 For this story I decided to use the computer to draw my panel borders, so I did roughly equal sized panels, but then adjusted them for variety and to better fit the dialog. I also used the computer to do the lettering. I usually have at least a rough sketch in place before I do the lettering, but I somehow decided to letter first, then do the rough layout pencils. Next step was to tighten the pencils and try to get a consistent look to the secondary character.


More tightening and background details go in, then inking, and finally, with pencils erased, it's ready to publish.

Click on any of the pics and run through the whole process in larger, easier to see sizes.

Saturday, May 14, 2016

Monthly Couple

 One of the resolutions is taking at least one picture of us together every month. Here are the missing three months.
At Lemongrass in Brunswick
Maine Maple Sunday
In Carrie's new car


Where the wild things are

I should have posted this Feb. 2nd




 Both Park Ranger and I love animals and I will happily take pictures of whatever we run across if I brought the camera. We saw the fellow to the right in our back yard one morning.







I was recently out to do some grocery shopping and saw the first couple of geese returned to Goose Field. On the way back I noticed some goslings too. We made it a point to swing by with a camera on our next outing and found two goose couples with their young.

I was by again this morning and saw several more couples. They were all further out in the field with the grass getting tall, so I couldn't tell if any more babies were running around.



Screen Test

  Part of this year's resolution to get some projects wrapped up is doing the medical stuff. I normally prefer to do these one at a time, but this year individual procedures repeated visits and timing was important on a couple as well.

The dental work was thrust on me sooner than wanted when an old crown broke off, taking what was left of the tooth with it, meaning I couldn't just have a new one put on. While I was having that checked out, I got a general checkup and found 3 cavities on the other side of my mouth. I decided to have them taken care of first, so I would have at least one useable side of my mouth fairly quickly. But the appointment to fill those cavities was only long enough to deal with one. Why didn't they tell me that only one was being done? So I made sure they scheduled a long enough time slot to take care of both remaining fillings on my next visit. On that next visit I had to wait a rather long time because an emergency had come up that had to be dealt with immediately. And took up enough time that they would only work on one of my teeth.

Anyway, after the three cavities were finally filled, I made an appointment with an oral surgeon to pull the root of my broken tooth. I had to wait three months for that to heal before they would put in the implant. Three more months to heal before they would put a crown on the post. Final step was accomplished last week.
 
 
Early on in that mess I had reached the time for my yearly skin cancer screening, an appointment I'd made a year ago at my last one. The dermatologist was rather rushed, not doing a very good job in my opinion, and had to be talked into checking a lump on my arm where basel cell carcinoma had been previously excised. He did a sloppy job of taking a sample resulting in quite a loss of blood on my part, with a bunch of stitches in my arm, and a big mess in the examination room. I was still glad he had checked it because I once again had basel cell. I had to make another appointment for a different doctor to carve it out. I still have a big divot in my arm. The two pictures above are a couple of days after the operation and then a couple of days after the stitches came out.



This year, for the health insurance I get through work, I had to visit my primary care physician for a regular check up, but I wanted to wait until my stitches were out, so more waiting, but there was a deadline, so not too much waiting allowed. I also got the pcp to arrange a colonoscopy. There's a family history of cancer, so I try to be very proactive. No polyps were found.






I still have to get new glasses, I'm going only six months between skin cancer screenings because of my recent operation, and the oral surgeon wants to check out how the dentist did in putting in my crown, but I think I am doing good in getting all this taken care of.