| 2008 Year Goals (Stickied) | |||
| 09:06pm 02/01/2009 | |||
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First, I'll keep this at the very top of the journal to remind myself. Then I will go on to add some more as they come up... Edit: Changed goals on 1/19 First I'm considering weeknights to be Monday thru Thursday. 1 hour of art for 2 out of the 4 weeknights. Friday thru Sunday will be my weekend. 6 hours over the course of the three days, however it works best. That gives me 8 hours of art a week. Doesn't sound like all that much but I think it's more realistic considering my work schedule and other stuff. I'll spend an hour a week on Mint Cheesecake stuff. Something that involves it but not the art...Like making t-shirts, buttons, ordering prints, the website, inventory, or whatever. So there. 9 hours with the arty stuff. And that'll come out to something like 36 hours a month. That'll be the monthly minimum, and I'll say that 40 hours of the month will be the happier goal. This is not only great for making sure I sit down and spend time doing art, but also to help me see what I can accomplish. Right now I'm going through doing art willy-nilly and never know how long I work on a picture or whatnot. This should give me a much better picture on what I get done. I found a free time tracking program online. I'm not sure if I like it all that well but it will work for now. |
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| 12:11am 13/04/2008 | |||
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For whatever reason this morning I decided I totally don't like my website design. It and some other slight junk got me all down today. Didn't do much. Except I did sketch out an idea for an art piece. So anyways...I think I may first work on a site re-re-design...I figure if I do it now before getting in much deeper it might be better. Also, this time I'm going through css and I that seems like I'd be building some much better framework. Yeah. I dunno. Artist crisis over here again. |
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| Distraction is a problem | ||||
| 10:23am 12/04/2008 | ||||
I worked on site stuff some this week. About a couple of hours of getting pics ready. I was lazy and didn't do anything yesterday, but I also went out with friends for the large chunk of the evening. It was more like being busy with other plans than goofing off (at least that's what I'm telling myself.) Less than two weeks now until MTAC. I'm most unhappy with a lack of new art. Like full blown illustrations and stuff. I don't know why but I've just had the hardest time coming up with ideas and doing them. It's like an ongoing slump and it sucks. I've got one new piece in the past like four months. At best now I think I'll be able to get something new out for the May cons. And my poor printer is sorely under-used. I mean...the upside is I've gotten a couple of new button designs and t-shirts. I've gotta make those t-shirts though. Bah. I should do some bookmark work as well. Also cushion the button stock. I ordered more button parts last weekend so I'm still waiting on those. I'm still not too happy with the productivity, but I'm getting better. Today looks pretty rainy and blah and I think I hear thunder, so maybe I'll concentrate and knock things out. I'm not sure if just going head-first and trying to cram full a day of doing this stuff is good or not though. I'm afriad of bad burn-out. But then again, it seemed to work a bit better last weekend. I like what I'm doing so it's not bad. I dunno. Onwards and today will be filled with accomplishment! |
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determined| Not doing too bad this weekend | ||||
| 05:56pm 06/04/2008 | ||||
I've been trying to get images sorted and scanned and ready for the website today. I've got a lot of older stuff that just requires scanning. Not fun. And then I'm trying to get things all nice and organized on a spreadsheet as well. And yeah. That's why the site is taking so long...beyond the issues where I'm learning to code it as I go...there's just so much art I have to get prepared. I might get another gallery section or two up next weekend. I have a feeling the prep work is going to take the rest of the evening and a bit more time on top of that. |
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| 10:25pm 04/04/2008 | |||
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Not much exciting going on...so lack of updatage. I did go to Jamp!con in Chattanooga. It was cool. The hotel was cool, and the congoers seemed to be having a lot of fun, so it was enjoyable. I did good at the table in relation to the crowd...but the crowd was tiny. So yeah. I got to chat with some people and stuff, soemthing I normally don't do becuase I suck at social skills. That was good. I'll probably go again next year. I put my site online, but it's buggy and only like half finished. I just felt like I needed to get something up. Still working on it though. A lot of education going on behind the scenes. I got a book to try to help the programming and stuff. There will probably a lot more behind-the-scenes tinkering than much else for a bit. I have a new tshirt design planned out. I actually have two, but the second is pretty experimental. Don't know how that will turn out. I need to do the design up and cut the stencil. And then remake stencils of the past couple of designs becauase they're getting all warp-y. And so that's been about it. |
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| Why can't you just be able to buy motivation? | |||
| 03:16am 17/02/2008 | |||
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I'll admit I've been horrible at doing my art goals and stopped with the time tracking because I didn't really like the program after all. On top of that, I got a cold again so the entire week was spent watching dvds after work. (A week of a horror tv show will give you some messed-up dreams.) And lately, I don't know if I'm just being lazy or unmotivated. Or I could still be in a funk. Who knows. I wish I would snap out of it. But on a more positive note... I bought an Epson photo printer that does wide format printing. So I can do larger prints now. And better quality ones. I need to do some re-arranging in the office and set the whole shebang up. There are a few pictures I plan on re-printing for cons. I guess a lot of stuff will be put into some sort of wierd transition from the Staples/Kinko's prints to the (hopefully prettier) new prints as things sell out. We'll see. And I'm still debating on whether to do things like button prints or 4x6's at home or somewhere else to try to keep a load off the printer. We'll see how things go. Also JD bought a black and white laser printer on sale a couple of weeks ago. So that takes care of straight black and white printing. I've got the whole operation pretty much at home now. So it means I've got more room to try some different things and get some better quality into my stuff. A lot more room for custamizing, and for the first time some larger than 8 1/2x11 prints. Also with the B&W printer I can see a better potential in doing things like comic projects or little booklets and stuff. Speaking of... I also have an idea I'm poking at for a short story type manga. In fact, the idea is pretty developed to the point where I'm seriously trying to go for it. I have to get over a couple of "is it really good" and self-doubt-type hang-ups though. I just need to go for it. It can be bad, it might be cliche, the style might be generic...but everyone has to start somewhere, you know? I tend to worry about whether something is really cool or creative or try to embark on too much. Then I back myself back up into square 1 and ultimately do nothing. So I think my goal is to stick with this thing and get it out before the end of the year. I'm thinking it might be about 20-ish pages...who knows. I might go back to a little doujinshi I had done a while ago and try to get that done too. Sort of a warm-up and something to sell at cons, even if FMA is getting a bit old. I might have a fanart illustration in mind for Mushi-shi. (Maybe I'll do it larger size...) I've still got that Alice pin-up peice in the works. The website is slowly trucking along. I got it pretty much "sketched out". I'm fleshing out sections and trying to put it all together. I want to get the main gallery up soon with some misc content. Then add more and more in updates. By that time I should have a backlog of new content...so the idea is to start the site and then do constant updating from there on out I guess. I'm only aiming for bi-monthly updates so it shouldn't be a problem. |
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| I bought some Amp for all of this | ||||
| 10:57pm 01/02/2008 | ||||
Also... I have the tentative con schedule made up (somewhat accidentally). It's as follows: JAMPCon! * Chattanooga TN March 28-10 MTAC * Nashville TN April 25-27 Animazement * Durham NC May 23-25 Akon Dallas TX May 30-June 1 AWA Atlanta GA September 19-21 Anime USA Crystal City VA October 10-12 * Means it's confirmed (or should be) I wanted to do Momo Con in GA but didn't get a table. Utterly sucky communication, limited space and probably the way they did things. Akon might be tricky because of thier registration. Animazement was out of the blue. I was looking at it as a fall-back con for Akon, but I'll still do it now even with Akon. Makes for a busy week. So I have a little less than two weeks before the first con hits and things go into full swing. So full speed ahead! I want to finish two button and one tshirt design this weekend. Also I'm looking into plopping down the money for a printer. Prints from office stores and Kinkos leave something to be desired. I want to do photo-quality like prints. I can order online or I can plunge in for the printer. Online orders should be less hassle/ commitment and perhaps even cheaper, but I'd have to plan my orders carefully and send in batches. One or two prints here or there would be a big problem and I know I need one-offs for things like commissions. Also, I'm toeing the line of most policies with fanart and I can't print adult material. I can do that stuff with my own printer, do various sizes and print whatever I want. I just have to sink the money for the printer and ink and paper and worry about printer problems. Oh and there's website work this weekend to be done too. I would like to start getting things up as soon as possible. I think I'm going to get the main structure and some main info and galleries made and upload. Then work on the other chunks and follow them as there finished. It would be better to do the whole thing at once, but it's taking a while. That gives something more than the page there now just sending people to the DeviantART account. |
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| Okay...so I still haven't really gotten things in gear. | ||||
| 02:31am 27/01/2008 | ||||
Also, I don't think I like the time tracking program I got. It's too detail and too business based. I want something simpler I guess. I really just need a way to organize things by project, time spent and then give daily/ weekly/ etc sort of summaries. I might go try to look for something else. Or just forget about that and try to rig some sort of excel worksheet. Or hey...just write everything down in a notebook. (I kinda help keep track of time at work on projects in a little notebook, then go put it in a timesheet. So the notebook thing would feel natural but it wouldn't have all the data stuff I would want.) I'm really just doing commission work right now. Nothing too exciting. And I have a couple of button designs I wanna knock out. |
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blah| Still doing only so-so...but a bit better. | |||
| 11:39am 19/01/2008 | |||
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I've been doing a bit better with the art through this week...in a way. I did some sketching and doodling. Not all bad, since I've got a couple of ideas out of it. However, I didn't keep track of any time...so yeah. I'm struggling a bit with this between being distracted and not putting in enough effort. Time to try a bit harder. Next week is the last week in January, so I'll really try hard to hit it. That way I can say I just needed a month to get a habit formed or something. I do need to change my art goal. The set-up now doesn't work quite as well as I want. I do have a couple of button designs in mind and some plans for some possible other types of thing for the table. Also, I think I'm going to go to Target to get some crates I need for a table set-up I have in mind. My set-up for the last two cons were incredibly flat and boring. The real challenge is getting everything I need for my table into a few bags I can easily carry with me alone. Everything can't take up too much space or be too heavy for weak little me. I go down to the AA early and don't want to drag my husband out of bed just to help me. But if I can take everything I really need in that one go, I can leave things up in the room I can do without for a few hours. Doing a table is trickier when it's just you. You can't leave the table without someone else around and have to plan ahead a lot more. So far I haven't encountered any major problems though. But back to the set-up...I'm planning something that will go up a bit more vertically and also provide a much better button display. I also need a set-up with enough versatility to shrink or enlarge depending on how much table space I have. Worst case scenerio is I share with someone and I'm limited to half a table...so everything must fit in like a space of 3 ft. I also want to get a table-cloth to help seperate myelf from everyone else a bit better. A banner would be cool, but I don't really have desire for one right now. There's also the idea to make a sort of canopy like display at some point. But I think that's more out of reach. Well...time to get rolling instead of just sitting around on the computer. I still haven't even gotten dressed yet. :p |
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| Almost the end of Week 2.... | |||
| 11:04pm 12/01/2008 | |||
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....And I've done crap on art this week. So unless I do art all day long tomorrow or something, I've failed the weekly goal worse than last time. Not good at all...BUT...I've spend some time I think every night this week working on creating the website. So I'll forgive myself on the art, 'cause I really need to get that done as well. I've been doing it all from html straight-up and ditched trying to do things through Dreamweaver. I am oh-so-close to getting the structure I want laid out. Then it's just the time consuming matter of going through and creating each page. I dunno how much I've mentioned the website development on this page. I hope to have the majority of it up and running before the first con of the year, and then update the rest of it as it's created. So yeah. I've still been productive this week. I do think I am going to tinker with the art goal a bit though. I want to consider Friday evening the weekend and tweek the weeknight goals. It's still the first of the year and kinks have to be worked out before I get a good groove going. And I think it's important to be understanding when you don't meet goals and not be hard on yourself. Otherwise, you get really bummed and discouraged quick. Onwards with more website... |
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| Week 1 | ||||
| 12:59am 06/01/2008 | ||||
Really...haven't done too much. I've just been doing commission work, so no exciting projects (to me) to go on about. I am working on an image between the commission stuff. It's an original piece with Alice (of the Wonderland type)...kinda porny though. So it's not terribly creative, but it's cute, and I'll try to post something of it's work in progress when I get a chance. Right now I'm working on the color in Painter. As for the New Year resolution stuff...It's going so-so. But this week has been short and all. I almost got my three hours in for the weeknights, but haven't done anything for the weekend. So I need to do six hours worth of art to make it...which looks like it won't happen. I might have to adjust the goals...and I'm not sure whether to consider Friday a weekend night or not. Maybe after this month I'll look back and make a decision. I did get a time-tracking program though. I'm going to keep track and make note of how long it takes me to do something. That'll be useful. And of course great for the goal thing. I need to get back to work on the website, bad. I want to have something up for JampCon..the first con of this year. It looks like Momo-con will be a no-go due to a COMPLETE LACK OF COMMUNICATION TO ME. Seriously, I wouldn't be so fed up, but I e-mailed the two contact e-mail addresses that I'm supposed to...and nothing. Plus, the dealer tables are expensive and the alley tables just suck in location so bad...so it's not some huge loss to me. |
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full| Clean sketch and my love for the light box | |||
| 08:15pm 05/10/2007 | |||
 Sketch done of my website mascot. The icon I'm using is from the completed colored version of this sketch. It's not the original rough sketch, but rather a (mostly...I was be too lazy to do a really great job) clean trace of the first - I usually do pretty rough original sketches. It's mostly to get the idea down on paper and it tends to get messier the more I work on it and tweak things. Then, when I feel I've got what I wanted, I fire up the lightbox (basically, a metal box with a light inside and a thick plastic top) to trace over the drawing on a fresh clean peice of paper. I normally do this really lightly, so I can then ink the piece and erase the pencil lines. I didn't on this one...just worked off of clean pencil lines. (I'd upload the original rough sketch as well, but I'm lazy and don't want to find it and scan it. Maybe for another picture.) Yeah, it's a bit more work and requires extra equipment, but I think I get good results off it. I have the freedom to change and tweak things in the sketch without having to worry to keep it neat for the inking. That makes a big difference, and I can also trace and re-trace as many times as I need to through different versions of an image to change/keep things I like. More work there, but a lot more room to "perfect" things. I don't hear a lot of people mention using a light box. I love mine though. |
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| I'm not dead!! | |||
| 08:04pm 05/10/2007 | |||
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I don't care much for the look of the journal....but I don't feel like looking into modifying it anymore than this at the moment. I was busy with convention things the past month or so, and it looks like I'm busy trying to get a head start on things for the next convention. So I still haven't gotten the website good-to-go yet. :( I will be posting some art though. As soon as I tinker with a few more things.... |
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| 02:09am 26/08/2007 | |||
| Yay! The art journal is all set up. Sorta. I need to do some better layout or something. And make some nifty icons and do some stuff with it and the website. But hey, there's a start. | |||
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mint_cake_art |
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Friends Info Calendar Mint Cheesecake Gallery |
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