blackUnicorn.org

Roller derby stuff keeps popping up in my sketchbook. I’m not coordinated enough to ever do it myself, but I like the idea of it- a bunch of tough chicks on roller skates racing and getting physical seems to be tickling my imagination. Plus, looking at derby pictures gives me a huge variety of bodies to draw, with interesting outfits and cool props. Expect more of these.

I actually did this about a week ago, and haven’t gotten around to coloring it until today. I’ve been practicing!

I’ve also been doing a lot of doodling, but I’m not inclined to post that. People have been asking me why I stopped posting though, so maybe I should!

Now that I’ve had the guitar a couple of days, I’m starting to see how this fits into the larger picture of changing my life and my art. I played the violin when I was a kid, and sucked badly at it, partially because I didn’t like the whole  neighborhood being able to hear me when I practiced. So I didn’t practice. When I was 14 or so, I was given an acousitc guitar by a friend, and went to guitar club after school for a few weeks, but quickly got frustrated for sucking again.

I still suck, badly. But it’s only been two days, and I’m determined not to let my self-consciousness  stop me from trying. Plus, the kit I bought came with headphones that plug into the amp, so I can practice without anybody hearing me if I want

I’ve started doing this exercise that sits me down in front of pen and paper every single night. I’m making more drawings than I’m posting on the blog here, and I’m okay with that. I’m making doodles that I can see developing into stuff and that’s good, too. Then I did this last night:

I haven’t forgotten about SnoogleZoo, I just needed to take a break. I don’t think doing a serial webcomic is for me- it’s not exactly the time commitment, like I thought it was, because doing all this constraint-free drawing is taking up the same kind of time that working on SnoogleZoo was. I think it’s more like feeling trapped within a certain framework. It felt like homework and I think it was stifiling the art. Not to mention all my other art that I wasn’t doing.

I’ve been kicking around a couple of ideas of what to do- I miss the characters more than I thought I would, so I’d rather not abandon them to the realm of silent, one-off illustrations. But I don’t want to get trapped slogging through an un-interesting story arc just to meet a deadline. I’m thinking I should just do stories on a whenever-I-feel-like-it basis, which I think will serve my desire to do something of quality, and also prevent me from growing a readership of any respectable size.

But you know what? I don’t really care about that right now. I really need to be making art before I can concern myself with things like making art on a schedule.

So don’t worry, Pan. We’ll be back soon enough, and you can pick on Efram and get extra whipped cream from the Kitties’ cafe and have all kinds of fun and silly adventures with the rest of the gang real soon. But sometimes I will have to give my attention to killer robots and pin-up girls, too. It’s better for everyone this way