Weekly Update - 121 (Patreon)

Fun with lighting and "camera" angles!  Also, who is this mysterious figure in the firelight?  Keeping a tight lid on it now, but hiding his appearance on this page was a lot of fun.

Comic This Week:  That's the plan!

Drawing:  Page 143

Playing:  WoW

Ramble:
No ramble today!  This time I mean it.

...

No, I need to draw, I don't want to spend the next three hours writing a big stream of consciousness and then editing it so that it makes any semblance of sense.

Seriously!

But okay, like... no.  I'm not gonna talk about the Thermian Paradox or mental illnesses or why I'm so afraid to draw Max or the challenges of being an artist or writer or in my case both...

Annnd now this has turned into writing as a way of kickstarting my internal monologue.  I can't always dive right into something at full blast without revving up the engine first.  Rambles are good for that, sometimes, landing at the start of each week.  Especially after binging WoW all weekend long and failing to accomplish anything at all.  I woke up this morning feeling completely braindead.  It isn't like I can just flip a switch to get myself into a mental mindset for writing or drawing, and that's something that I think the importance of which is often underrepresented.

A topic I remember long ago from when I read Stephen King's On Writing was that there's this bizarre expectation that writers (and I think artists too), are always ready and able to write (or draw).  As if it's this innate skill or talent that every writer or artist has.  If you have it and can do it, you can just do it.  Like magic.  It's a big misconception that I think some people have, that writing and/or art isn't any work.

But anyone who has ever attempted to write or draw can certainly confirm that yes, it is, indeed, a lot of work.  And there's a very good reason that high quality professional artists and high quality professional writers are paid quite a bit for their crafts.

I will be the first to admit I'm an amateur, (and truth told, I don't know that I will ever cross a line where I consider myself a professional) but after doing this for nearly four years (f-five?  For me?) I can tell you quite definitively that writing and drawing is a skill that requires constant practice and fine-tuning.  Stephen King compares it to playing basketball.  Professional basketball players have to practice constantly, keeping their bodies and their skills in top shape for when they need to perform.  Writers (and artists) must constantly practice in much the same way.  It is a mental skill, not a physical one, but it a skill that can still atrophy from disuse.

There have definitely been weeks where I have not been seriously engaged with Kiva's story, or with writing in any form, and the crap that comes out of my head the next time I sit down to think about it is, quite plainly, crap.  Very little of it is usable, usually, and what little might be somewhat okay needs a lot of refining to be brought up to my own minimum standards of quality.  It is the same with the art.  I stopped sketching for months.  I stopped generating extra art in any form, and you know what happened?  It felt like my skills as an artist stagnated.  I was still drawing, so I wasn't getting any worse, but it felt like I was no longer improving, at all, for months.  I start sketching again and suddenly I'm trying new things, new lighting techniques, new "camera" angles. Daring to break outside the box a little bit because my few sketches (ones both posted and not) have helped me build a little bit of confidence in the things I don't normally draw.  Sketching is a low-risk way of trying crazy shit.  If it doesn't turn out in the end, oh well, it took me maybe 10 minutes and I have plenty of time left to try again.

Anyway, now that my brain seems to have woken up, I'ma go draw.  And write.  And do all the things I do.  And while the Thermian Paradox is an interesting topic, I don't know that it's necessarily worth a ramble, honestly.  We have a wonderful community and I don't have plans to try and write a lot of controversial or upsetting content.  But it's still interesting and worth a look-up for the curious.