Slime Mansion

Ha ha, um, hey guys, it's been a while. D: I finally have a bit of free time this weekend though cause spring break is coming up and most of my major school projects are out of the way for now, so I got around to finally writing this blurb explaining my absence.

Basically, I'm still alive? It's not QUITE the dire barely-surviving situation that many of you might have expected though, for better or for worse. The story goes that my grandma left for Taiwan back during winter break soon after finals, and since my mom works two jobs and my little brother has tennis practice til 6PM on most days (HEY GUYS MY LITTLE BROTHER MADE THE HIGH SCHOOL TENNIS TEAM WOOOOO), I'm basically the maid/housewife now, lol. Also, four of the five classes I'm taking this semester are studio art classes which have double the hours and workload of normal lecture classes, so I haven't had a whole~ lot of time to do much else.

But I want to!! I feel like it's been so long since I worked on stuff for myself, and I really really want to be able to work on this comic especially, but every time I think that I'll have some time to do it, there's always some other project or household chore or some hungry mom or brother to feed that needs my attention more.

...That being said, um, screw that!! I'm gonna try to work on the comic anyway, because it makes me happy!!! ...is what I'd like to say, but it was easier to work on the comic before with my lecture classes cause I could bring them to class and just work on them while I listened to the teacher, but I can't really do that in studio classes since we're expected to actually work on our projects the whole six hours. :/ And most nights I want to just skimp out on cooking and get take-out instead, but in this economy and our current household financial situation (we're in debt is all I'll say ha ha), it'd be really irresponsible of me to needlessly spend money.

Still, I really do want to do more comic work! I even told a lot of people who bought my book that I'd have the second volume out by the summer conventions, except that's looking...less plausible now. But basically, my goal is to try to get the first two chapters of Unit 2 done by the end of the semester so I can do another little mini-book like I did in 2005 with the first two chapters of Unit 1. So if I want to do that, I'll have to SOMEway or another get my ass hauling on it in the immediate future, which means that updates ARE coming.

Sooo for now, tentatively, I'm saying that there'll be updates again around May. It could be sooner, it could be later, but I can't say for certain yet. I do know that my grandma's coming back finally some time in the middle of April though, so pretty soon I'll be relieved of my maid duties so I can dedicate more time to comic-drawing at home. :B

In conclusion, I apologize for keeping so many of you in the dark, but I have not and WILL NOT abandon this comic, because it really is like a child to me. In the meantime, I'll be periodically updating my personal website again with stuff I've been working on for school as well as general life updates, so you can tune in to that if you want while you wait. :D For the rest of you, see you again in May(?)!!

In my comics class we're doing a class project, a sort of anthology where we each draw a part of a complete graphic novel of an alternate retelling of the Greek myth of Hercules (or more accurately Greek, Herakles?). We're basing the story directly off the original legend where Herakles killed his own family and set off on the twelve labors and stuff, so it's definitely not Disney, and it's definitely definitely not Kevin Sorbo. But since the original legend made Herakles out to seem kind of like a stupid jock, we're also trying to inject some relatability in him by exploring his psyche?

Anyway, for the past several weeks we'd been going back and forth regarding the character designs, and eventually it ended up being me and two other people working on combining everybody's suggestions into a single design. Another guy in the group did the final bodies, but I got to take charge of the heads and the costume drawings, which is all I ever really cared about because by Jove, I want Herakles to be a hot bara superstar >8(!!

So an update on school, the previously mentioned financial aid fiasco has been sorta resolved, except I did end up getting a lot less grants this semester because of how late everything got processed, so meh :[ But anyway!!

This semester I'm taking a Sequential Art class! *_* There've only been three sessions so far, but it's very interesting and exciting, and the professor is amazing as well! He explains things very clearly, and his lectures are like a narrative in that you sort of get this feel that there are plot devices like foreshadowing and thematic overtones going on, and stuff that he hints at in the very first lecture eventually comes full circle in a later lecture. I'm looking forward to getting better at comics through this class!

Anyway, our first homework assignment was to do a two-page comic about an autobiographical incident, so um, I've included that in this entry for those of you who are interested. :D

Hey, check it out! I got interviewed at Animenewsnetwork! Evan, the guy who interviewed me, was somebody I'd met at Otakon this year. I had gotten interviewed a few times in the past, but I'm still a bumbling mess. Fortunately Evan managed to make sense of it and translate it into a coherent article.

One thing that readers might get confused about is him saying that I'd been reworking Directions of Destiny since printing the first volume--it doesn't mean what you think it means!! I'M NOT REDOING THE FIRST BOOK AGAIN I SWEARS! I just meant that I'd been reworking future chapters of the comic that I had previously planned in my head before, and also fleshing out the details of the overall plot. So that's why I'm finally starting Unit 2, because I feel more comfortable with where the story is going now. :D

ANYWAY, GO READ THE INTERVIEW YAY

Confession: one of my secret favorite pastimes is going through Japanese fan art sites looking at pictures of these two. :[ (It's Ike and Ranulf from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance!) Oh my gooooodddd I love Fire Emblem everybody should play iiiiit. I've been replaying The Binding Blade (the one with Roy in it) recently aaahh it makes me so happy, even though I really shouldn't be using my free time on it. 8D()