Do You Ever Get This...?

I feel like I'm leveling up. 0.o Or possibly graduating.

Finishing my internship?

Something like that.

I'd say "evolving," except that strictly speaking that's something that happens to species, not individuals. But maybe evolving in the Pokémon sense. ;)

Even when I went from high school to college, and from college to working life, I don't remember feeling like anything had actually changed.

'tis weird. And a bit scary. But still neat. :)

-The Gneech

The Double-Edged Blade of Inspiration

Watching and reading all this Love Hina has really inspired me, and is really helping me sort out my thoughts, feelings, and priorities about my creative work -- not just in terms of Suburban Jungle but also my long-term artistic/writing career. I've really been banging out the artwork at night, at a speed and level of quality (given that speed) that I've been quite pleased with.

The problem is, I don't become UN-inspired when I'm at work -- which makes my 8 hrs at Circle Solutions a looooooong drag of time. I feel like I'm at school again, bored out of my skull and staring at the clock, or possibly a kid in the back seat of a car, going, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"

(Circle: "Don't make me turn this work day around, mister!")

I've managed to sneak in bits of scripting and a little sketching here and there around projects at work, but even that has to be done in small doses and on the sly. I want to jump in and do FULL IMMERSION CARTOONING, dammit!

Le sigh. Only an hour and 13 more minutes 'til quitting time...

-The Gneech

So Of Course...

After that last post, I have a particularly rough inking session. :P Hooray for Photoshop Post-Op!

But, get me! I have drawn and inked through next Wednesday! Hooray for buffers! I'm trying to decide now if I should go ahead and finish off next week, or spend the rest of the evening working on Tough Breaks.

Hmm.

I wonder.

Oh well!

-The Gneech

Love Hina's Gone Berserk! 0.o

I just finished Volume 13 (of 14) of the Love Hina manga, and my head is spinning like a pulsar. (Or is that a quasar? The spinning one, anyway.) Reading this far, I can see what they were trying for with Love Hina Again but it just didn't quite work. The whole Kanako/Magic Annex thing happens in Vols. 11 and 12, and does come off better there than it did in LHA, but still seems pretty far out there. Nevertheless, it seems positively normal compared to Vol. 13. Aerial dogfights! Magic temples! Everybody and their sister has the hots of Keitaro, who is now a martial arts master and a ladies man! WTF? Oh, and the panty shots! Yikes! It's gone from being a pleasantly nerdy little harem comic to being the most outrageous self-insertion geek fanservice imaginable. But, gods of good taste forgive me, it's so freakin' funny that I love every minute of it!

This thing is gonna make my head explode, I just know it. 0.o

Speaking of Love Hina, I snagged this today! 9" x 12", 120 pp., it looks nice! I'll let you know what it's like when it gets here.

I mentioned before that I was finding inspiration for SJ in Love Hina; that's still true. Some of the scripts I came up with today, I don't think I would have ever thought of without it. But, I make this promise to you now, SJ is not going to get THAT ridiculous. Not without some shark-jumping lessons first, anyway!

-The Gneech