The Art of Tim

Things went pretty well yesterday. The first thing I did was sit down and write up a list of everything that I needed to get done for work that day. I crossed items off the list as I finished them, and when I was done with all of them, it was still early, and I felt really good. I felt like I had gotten a lot done, and I still had time to hang out and relax a bit. And I wasn’t up until 3-4am working, I got to bed around 1am, which means I could get up earlier today. I think this scheduling thing is going to work out great.

Wonder why I didn’t think of it before…

Britanny decided to come over here and do homework last night, but I’m not quite sure how much she actually got done. Between the marker fights (that purple marker still won’t come off my arms) and me trying to help her with her chemistry (highlighting all the coolest words in the text, like ‘Bunsen’ and ‘C Cup’) I’m afraid that she’ll fail her test and it will be all my fault. In my defense, however, uhh… she started it.

I’m off to run some errands and pick up Spider-man 2, since I’ve been dying to see it again, and I never saw it a second time in the theater. Just gotta see that train scene… when I saw it at the movies, everyone in the theater started clapping after that scene.

A few sketches today. Damned vacation.

If you’ve read the front page, you’ll know that my vacation wasn’t quite as stellar as I might have hoped. The bottom line is that it’s just the way the chips fall sometimes. I run a business, and not a particularly orthodox one either. I make my living as an online cartoonost, and for 90% of the things that need to get done around here, if I don’t do them myself, they don’t happen.

The first few days were a little bit weak, for reasons explained on the front page of the site. At one point I did sit down to relax and watch a movie. Started watching Chronicles of Riddick. It actually wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t great, either, but it was entertaining. Britanny called in the middle of the movie and asked if I wanted to go grab some food, so I went and hung out with her and her roommate for a while. Then made Britanny watch the rest of Riddick with me afterwards, and she had no idea what was going on. In turn, she made me watch Bam Margera and Johnny Knoxville prank it out on MTV. It was fun to hang out with Britanny, so that night was pretty good.

Friday was good too. It was just me and Matt around the apartment, so we played City of Heroes pretty much all day. On Saturday our friend Aaron drove down from MA and we played some tabletop games, and a bit of crash party. So Friday and Saturday were good.

But the vacation is over and I’m back to work now. It’s going to be a fairly busy month, not only with Christmas, but also with gearing up to celebrate Winter-een-mas, which was big last time, and is only going to grow in scope this time. I’m getting really gung-ho about getting more organized. I’m going to start scheduling every week. Plan out what needs to get accomplished each day, schedule days off, etc. My hope is that it will allow me more control over what is getting done, and allow me to work more efficiently.

Here’s a goofy picture of me that I snapped last night while fooling around with my digital camera that I had forgotten I had.

One of my roommates asked me for a full sketch of Ezekiel (The Xbot). Something to do with my christmas present. The bottom sketch is further concept work for the December robot project.

Been falling a bit off kilter with the “daily sketch” thing. Lately it has been more like every two days. My main focus right now is to make sure that my vacation happens next week. Once I’m on vacation. I can get back into my regular routines.

Any free time I’ve had lately has been filled with Halo 2, Half-Life 2, or City of Heroes. Half-Life 2 is awesome. No words will do it justice. It’s… an experience. I highly suggest grabbing it if your computer will run it.

I got a few free copies of the Collector’s DVD Edition of City of Heroes from the product marketing manager at NCSoft yesterday. I gave two of them to my roommates, Matt and Briana, because they were interested in trying CoH. NCSoft is also sending me a bunch of 60-day Tim Cards next week, so we’ll be set for playing for a while. Last night we formed a group along with our beloved Mookie of Dominic Deegan and my friend Brian Clevinger of 8-Bit Theater. It totally reminded of what I love about CoH. I’m going to keep my hero name secret this time, so that I can have some privacy and group with my close friends. I think having hundreds of people messaging me and inviting me to group every minute I logged on was what killed the game for me last time.

I just found out Sega and Pocket Kingdom (that N-Gage game I got to preview) is sending me twenty free t-shirts that say “I <3 PK”. I don’t know what I need twenty t-shirts for. My existing t-shirt collection alone takes up two full dresser drawers, between my own designs, and other webcomic t-shirts that I have (it’s common for us to trade merchandise amongst ourselves at conventions. A book for a book, shirt for a shirt, etc). I think I’ll keep one and come up with a contest or something to give the rest away.

I should probably start my christmas shopping soon too. Damnit.

Starting to play with some concept sketches for a project I’m working on in December.

The Halo 2 Party this weekend was a blast. At one point there were probably a good 18 people here. The guest list read like a webcomics convention. We had five Xboxes set up, across four rooms, for some 16 player Halo goodness.

My main focus this week is to draw comic strips. If I can get enough of them done, I’m finally going to take my vacation next week. It will be my last chance to take one… well… probably until late next year sometime.

We’re going to see the Incredibles tonight. We put it off last week, and this weekend was just crazy busy, so tonight is the night. Everyone says it’s great, so I’m looking forward to seeing it. I also want to see National Treasure, and Alexander. I’m sort of sick of the “epic war movie” type, but I really like Colin Farrell, and Alexander the Great was an incredible person, so I’m interested to see what they do with the movie.

I’m really itching to get back into City of Heroes, and I’m hoping to do that next week on my vacation. I also just got word from NCSoft that I will be at E3 2005, signing comic books at their booth, etc.

Also, I found my cell phone, so I stopped using that stupid N-Gage.

I need to start preparing for the party this weekend. I have to finish cleaning up the apartment, and tomorrow I’ll probably go shopping for party food etc. I’d like to get the Xbox LAN set up tonight so that we know it’s working fine before people start showing up, and so that we know if we have enough cable. Briana and Matt want to go see the Incredibles tonight. I want to go, but I’m worried I’ll be too busy working.

I lost my cell phone yesterday, which kind of sucks. I must have bumped up against something at some point and knocked it out of my pocket. I’ve suspended my service, so no calls can go in or out of the phone. I’ve gotta buy a new phone and probably change my number. It’s not a big deal, it’s just a bit of a hassle.

In the meantime I’m actually using this free N-gage as my phone. *sigh* I guess it’s better than nothing.

The USPS just stopped by to pick up 244 packages, the bulk of my work this weekend. I’m pretty confident that I can be done with my shipping work by this weekend.

I picked up some comic boxes at the shop yesterday. One of my next “me” projects is to re-bag and board all of my comic books. I’d like to start collecting comics again, but I want to make sure all of the three or four boxes of comics I already have are a squared away. I’m really looking forward to going through all of my comics again, but I know I’ll be stopping to read quite a few of them, so it’s not exactly a small project.

I’m realizing that I’m going to have a very small window in which to take my vacation, so I’ve got to make sure it happens. Once December hits, I’ve already scheduled myself quite a few projects in December, and a HUGE one in January. So if I don’t take a vacation in late November, I may be royally screwed.

Just working on some armor/headgear today. Nothing too exciting.

So I stayed home from Nekocon, and I’m loving every minute of it. I’ve gotten so much work done this weekend, it’s great. If I had gone down to Virginia, I would still be so far behind it wouldn’t even be funny. I’ve got the apartment all to myself(ish) and things have been going really well.

My focus today is to do some housecleaning. My room and office in particular need some attention, but the kitchen and bathroom will get some work too. We’ve all been so busy lately, and the apartment has been getting rather messy. We’re having a lot of company over next weekend for the big Halo 2 release party, so it’s time for me to start cleaning now, rather than be rushing around later in the week.

I’m really loving the Episode 3 trailer. I’ve been watching it periodically since it came out, and the part where Anakin turns around and you see his eyes still gives me goosebumps.

I’m almost done watching season 3 of The West Wing. I love this show so much. It’s got absolutely everything. I’ll watch the last three episodes tonight, and then hopefully I’ll have time to finish up Prince of Persia. I know GTA: San Andreas is enormous, so I’m not trying to finish that any time soon. I just want PoP out of the way before Halo 2 and PoP2 hit.

I’m pretty psyched. The third season of The West Wing came out on DVD yesterday, so I have a whole new 22 episodes to watch. I don’t really like TV, but there are a few shows that I enjoy, and The West Wing is among the top of that very small list. Anyone who knows me knows that I can’t watch a television series as it’s airing. I’m simply too busy, and just don’t have the discipline to remember every week at the same time to sit down and watch. Besides, I like to be able to sit down and watch whenever I want, however many episodes in a row I want (no dealing with cliffhangers) and without commercials. So I just wait and buy the DVD releases. Now if the third season of 24 would come out, I’d be all set.

Ordered a new Invader style Carbon Fiber hood for my MX-3 today. Can’t wait to get it on the car.

First sketch is just crap. Was paying more attention to the TV than the sketchbook. Macgyver was on.

I’m feeling much better now after my rough weekend. It’s not a mistake I’m likely to forget any time soon.

I’m not going out to vote today. I’m excersizing my right not to vote. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get myself interested in one candidate over the other. I honestly just don’t care. I think that George Bush is a terrible public speaker, and he makes himself look stupid, but that doesn’t automatically mean he’s a bad president, nor does that automatically mean that Kerry would be a better president. I honestly don’t trust what either politician says, and if anyone thinks that the news, candidate commercials, or even documentaries like Fahrenheit 911 are any more honest than the candidates themselves, then they are just as stupid as George Bush looks. That being said, this is the end of the discussion. The first person who turns my livejournal into a political debate will be banned permanantly. I don’t care if you think I should vote, and I really don’t care which candidate you prefer or why.

Some new t-shirts should be going up for pre-order today, some designs which I finally finished last night. The character shirts were giving me trouble. The original character shirts have been discontinued for months now. I printed up new versions, which were never sold online. I sold them at conventions. They sold pretty well, but I was never 100% satisfied with how they looked. Last night I finally hit on a layout that I’m happy with, and everyone who has seen it has really liked it. So I’m going to start with the Ethan and Lucas designs, and add the other characters as time goes on. Here’s a preview:

Definitely skipping Nekocon this weekend, which sort of sucks, but overall is the best route. I should (fingers crossed) be able to get the rest of the Chef Brian shirts and books shipped before Saturday 14th, which is when we’re having our Halo 2 party here. After the party, hopefully I can spend the week working on comics, and maybe take the following week as a vacation. If I went to Nekocon I wouldn’t get my vacation until December.

Here’s hoping.