Cucumber Alive

This past Monday, I thought I would take a break from my usual work; something that I like to do often.  It keeps my ideas feeling fresh, and helps to break units of time into comprehensible dates through my artwork.  (I can remember when I had drawn an image, better that I can with just the date alone.)  It was after I had just eaten supper, and 20 minutes gave me this:

I always enjoy doing still-life and scenery work. Who knows, you may even see me use this as reference later in my comic for when I go to do foliage...

There's kind of a story behind this as to why one of the cucumber plants, shown here, is dead and the other alive.  It is my fathers doing.  My mother said jokingly, that 'he couldn't have killed it better if he had strapped it to a pair of skis and sent it over the side of Mt.Washington', which is practically what he did when he left them on top of the slanted lid of our gardening tools' wooden storage box.  Haha! (didn't see that one coming now did we?)

As I was thinking of a title for this blog post, I couldn't help but think of that one show from my childhood, Mummies Alive, I think it was called... Gosh I miss those days when cartoons were the center of my Saturday morning rituals.  Now I can't even find the time to sit and watch even half of the ones that appear on television, nor do I even seem to want to.  I mean, some of the modern-day cartoons' pacing is terrible!  Not to say that I myself could do any better, but I would give the pacing a serious thought.  It feels as though the lead writers and story-board artists are trying to cram too much into a short, 15min episode.  It's nuts!  Even Sponge Bob has fallen ill to this new trend, don't you find?  Ah, what do I know anyway?  It's probably just my change in prospective, that's all.  I am no longer looking it over from a child's point of view, but as the view of someone who spends the vast majority of his time devoted to art.  ...I started to sound like my own grandfather there for a second.  phwoo! wouldn't want that, now, would we?!

...Bakugan is all the rage now a days, isn't it?  Man, I really need to get with the times!

Edit: Oops! So sorry guys!  I have just been informed by my mother that the plant in the second picture, titled 'alive', is actually a strawberry bush and not a thing of cucumbers.  I hope that I haven't offended anyone who is particularly sensitive about their plants... Wait? WHA-?! :S (confused face)

See? No Lies.

     I wasn't kidding when I said that I was going to give my blog a face-lift, and I have to agree, 'I love the new look!' (^.^) It's got some richer background colours than before, and I've actually enabled commenting. (yay...) I'm sorry about not having comments turned on before, but I guess that Blogger's default setting for its comments is not to allow anyone but blogger users to send them (or perhaps to not allow anyone to send them at all, I forget which one it is...)  Anyhow, everything is looking well; everything is feeling better!  I'm feeling a little better about this whole blog thing... all is well!  "W-w-wait! Did you forget to mention something,... perhaps about my comic... you know, the one that basically this whole blog is supposedly about!"

     Errr... umm, yeah! That thing.  Well, let's just say it could be faring better.  It's not that its not going to happen, because it will!  It's just taking me a lot more time than what I had been hoping for.  But, It's not really my fault, because I am a grade eleven student and my homework is a little much.  But not to worry! Because I am beginning to manage it better than I had before, and improvements to my quality of school-life are appearing upon me every day.  ~Life is Good.

Harvest Moon Boosts Production! -100%!!!! (not really)

  As I sat working at my desk the other night, I couldn't help but feel inspired.  My bedroom (which has now been converted into my own personal office and work-space) is situated at the back side of my house, and its window faces the Eastern portion of the sky.  On a normal night, the view from my second story window provides an excellent view of the celestial bodies (a perfect atmosphere for inventive and creative thinking), but this night was an extra special night, and I couldn't miss a chance like that to get my creative juices flowing.

  For those of you that don't know very much about the moon or it's fazes, us space-savvy people could tell you that the moon of two nights ago was more than just the full moon, it was also a very special kind of moon, the harvest moon, and a beautiful one at that! 

  As a self-taught, young, aspiring artists, I tend to seek inspiration in the simplest of things.  From the way that a leaf floats across a gentle moving stream, to the shadow that is created by a tree in a park; true artists must come to identify the simple mechanics and principles that make our world tick, and one of the biggest of those inspirations for me is the night sky! 

  As you tour around my site, I am sure you will find that my love of space sometimes shines through in my artwork, and I am positive that this won't be the last time I mention of this.  Anyway, the whole purpose of me telling you this is so that I could convey to you just how inspired I am, and to tell you that future work to my comic is underway!  My second page is looking considerably better than my first and I would like to have it posted somewhere towards the end of this weekend.  On average, I want to rev-up my production to one page-per-week, but still no promises on that.  I am beginning to gauge my own production speed for the time being, so that I can learn how to increase it as I move along.  You can also expect to see my blog get a well-deserved face lift in the next couple of days, probably after my second page is posted, so there are lots of stuff going-on here indeed!  I'm sorry that I couldn't post my 2nd page sooner than what you would be hoping for, but for now you are just going to have to deal with my lengthy and long-winded pages of text.  

  But,Cheer Up! (there's more to come.)

(Yes, I am well aware that the image I used in this post comes from Akira Himekawa's manga adaptation of 'The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask', but it is my own version of her drawing and it was the only image that I found on my computer that best fits the content of this page.  PLEASE FORGIVE ME NINTENDO! I mean you no harm...-.-") 

1st Page-Done!

I am finally finished inking the first page!  I am very happy with the overall results, and am proud of myself for reaching this milestone in my pre-graduate years of high school.  I had promised myself that I would have posted at least this here by the end of summer vacation, and it looks as though I followed through and kept to my word.

Anyway, to save you from having to hear me rant about all the things I could have done differently with this, my first comics page (yay!), I would rather hear you comment about it yourselves.

Just leave a little message for me at the bottom of the page saying all of the things you either liked or disliked about this particular segment, and I will make sure to listen tentatively to what you have to say so that I can incorporate all of your thoughts and ideas into my next piece.

(*So... Much... BOARDER INKING!  It is far too cluttered for my liking. My poor hands yearn to weep!)

"Oh well, Len! Just live and learn, live and learn~"

EDIT: View my second page here!