Category Archives: Uncategorized

contemplating upgrades

Peggy
March 7, 2014

Oh man, I think I may be about to grit my teeth and give in to Adobe’s Creative Cloud. I went and looked and they have now quietly added some features I actually want. Curved corners, very much like what one of Astute Graphics’ plugins does, except better-integrated; the return of sliders for transparency (when they rebuilt the interface for CS6, or was it 5? they turned a bunch of sliders into dropdowns with 10%/20%/30%/etc), bitmaps in art brushes, and most importantly some new fillips to the pencil tool that lets you hold down a key to make some or all of your lines into straight ones.

The pencil tool is like 95% of my Illustrator use. This could be important.

Running the math.

Single app: $20/mo, $240/year.
Full Creative Suite: $50/mo. $600/year. OR if you’re an existing customer you can get the first year for $30/mo – $360/year.

My usage of the Creative Suite is basically Illustrator all day every day, plus InDesign and Premiere a few times a year for putting together books and Kickstarter videos and whatnot. Let’s say I need one of them like four months out of the year – if I subscribe to one app or another for a month or two and cancel it after, that’s $80/year.

So Illustrator plus ad-hoc usage of other apps is around $320. I could see it easily being $360, what with forgetting to cancel subscriptions, having book production run long, etc. That is about what I paid for a new release of Illustrator every year and a half. I’m still giving Adobe more money than I used to, but I’m also able to use the other apps without the immense hassle of abusing trial versions and/or the SAY YOHO route.

The existing user price works for me for a year. But unless I suddenly start making a LOT more money off my stuff, I’ll be going down to the single app plus ad-hoc rentals of other apps once that’s over.

Either way, I’m going to mull this over a few more days. I’m in the very last stages of getting Rita 2 to press, I really do not want to get lost down the rabbit hole of upgrading anything right now.

edit. Okay fuck it I sent off the very last tweaks to Rita 2, I did it. Now I get to have the JOY of migrating my settings. ALWAYS FUN. I just tried doing some by cloning over files, and now Illustrator CC is crashing on launch even after removing stuff I added to its settings. WHEE. So I get to wrangle installing it AGAIN. And it’s been stuck at 90% for like five minutes now…

laundry day

Peggy
March 6, 2014

It’s not so much that I’m out of clean clothes as that I’m out of clean clothes that a sane person would wear outside in this weather. I’m sure the PVC catsuit would be nice and toasty warm, but it’s really not the right thing to wear to my appointment to have intimate hairs burnt off of my body with lasers.

WOOOO

Peggy
March 6, 2014

So a couple weeks ago I got a pull-up bar and set it up in the door to my bathroom. And pretty much every time I visit the bathroom, I’ve made a few attempts at a pull-up.

Just now I actually managed to lift myself an inch off the ground for a second or two. Yay!

Really need to program myself to do situps more regularly, too. I miss having a taut little tummy.

not one of those productive feeling days

Peggy
March 5, 2014

Stuff I did today: completed every current task involving printing book 2 of Rita. Contemplated Drowning City, had a thoughtful conversation about the planned rape scene in that with a friend who's been through being raped. It's still in but it's definitely not going to be played for fap material. Moved the overfill laundry basket next to the front door but didn't actually do any. Fiddled around playing some video games. Put the sun lamp away for spring.

I tried to get myself moving on the next page of Rita, or some other thing that Needs Doing, but the back of my head was all “dealing with this book stuff was a big stress deal for a couple days, I don't want to think about Rita at all today”.

I should probably feel like I got Some Stuff Done but I really don't. Adding another page to the current big project feels like progress; dealing with making the book happen doesn't.

I guess that some of the bits of writing I did while contemplating Drowning City counted as work too? It wasn't much, but some of it included adding more detail to an important climactic scene that's pretty directly related to my own wounds, and that was kind of emotionally draining.

Tomorrow: laundry, clean up stuff left over from approving book proofs, make doctor appointment, probably draw some Rita. I'm never going to get ahead of schedule at this rate, ever. Oh well. As long as I keep picking away, it'll get done.

 

Peggy
March 5, 2014

ponder whether or not I should have a trigger warning on Drowning City for offscreen but definite rape and mindfuck

a few friends who are rape survivors offer to look over it

pull out existing script to see about putting together a copy for them to look at

start writing bits here and there as I flip through it

write a few panels about the relationship between the main character and another one that directly relates to one of the personal wounds of my own this story is built around

start crying

Drawing this comic is going to be SO MUCH FUN. And by “fun” I mean “ripping off some very very old emotional scabs”. God I hope I never need to write anything this painful again, this whole comic is basically distilled angst from my two biggest personal tragedies.

naming inaminate objects

Peggy
February 27, 2014

I have exactly one dress that has a name. It is a bright orange dress printed with big orange/yellow/white flowers. It hugs my body like it was made for me, but it’s just a super lucky vintage shop find.

It is named “Boys for Pelé” and wearing it tends to bring a certain attitude. I pretty much can’t wear it unless my hair is bright red.

The only other thing I own that has a name is my laptop. You can call it Tealfour, which is short for its real name. You’re not allowed to know its real name.

I walked into my closet today after yoga class and wondered what I should wear. Then I realized I was already wearing orange socks and tights printed with lava, and my hair is still hot red. Yeah. Today’s a volcano sex goddess kind of day.

And now, bacon.

watching Revolutionary Girl Utena: 2

Peggy
February 26, 2014

Worked on Rita for a while, then decided it was time for a break. And I managed to coax my tablet into loading a couple more episodes of Utena. Here are the things I wrote down while watching them, for your amusement.

Wait didn’t I see this opening already? Is this really episode 3? *scrubs back and forth* yep! Ep 3 starts with the same little playlet as ep 1.

Holy shit. Every single girl in this school wants to either do
Utena, or be her. The way they stop and stare whenever she passes.

Oooh. Utena denies being gay, says she wants a man. And then here comes a creepy bishonen with red hair to call her pretty and patronize her. Who turns out to be The Prince Who Gave Her The Ring. The one that inspired her to become a heroic prince who rescues girls.

How the hell does “sitting on top of an ivory tower dueling” translate to “breaking the egg of the world and ruling it”, student council?

Mmmm. Unpopular, awkward student being mocked by the popular girls. Anthy is going to enjoy being the homecoming queen almost as much as Carrie, I’m sure.

Anthy and Utena get dresses delivered by a disembodied voice. Did Anthy’s come with contacts, or with condoms?

YES. The “Do you know? Do you know?” shadow puppets are back again. The chorus, the Voice of the People, the “they” in “you know what they say”. Someday I need to do a story with a Geek chorus like this. These repeating images and shots are starting to give this show a fugue-like structure.

Utena’s dress: a huge red rosebud in the middle of a giant field of PINK. Is it just me or does that sound kinda suggestive? Prince dude is trying super hard to force her into traditional female roles here. Meanwhile the one dark skinned person is being stripped half naked for the amusement of the haughty rich ladies, who feed on Anthy’s humiliation. But it brings out PRINCE UTENA to save the day.

Okay I totally want Prince Utena to sweep me up in her arms and save me and dance in a romantic field of soft focus and floating rose petals. She can totally top the hell out of me. Am I going to end up drawing my dragon character cosplaying as Anthy with someone someday.

Oooh, I like how episode 4 cuts straight to the fight. Fake out, now we flash back and find out what’s happening here. Me being me, I kind of want to go forwards from here and intercut the fight with flashbacks, or just leave a lot unsaid. (Though as the episode progressed I was glad to see things being said.)

Oh good, finally someone who wants poor antisocial Anthy. Even if the Did You Know puppets end up implying that Mr. Blue-Haired Musician From The Student Council is being a total Nice Guy all over Anthy. They just about handed him his fedora.

And why does he obsessively click his stopwatch? This will be important at some point; it’s been repeated a lot. Once an episode before, now twice in the first half of episode 4.

Oh my god I love the repeated scenes with Popular Girl trying to implement “Operation Anthy’s A Total Weirdo Who Keeps Creepy Animals In Weird Places”.

Also I am totally finding myself sympathizing with Anthy. I was totally that weird kid with glasses who sits in a corner, doesn’t have any friends, and draws flipbooks in the corners of her notes. Seriously so many flipbooks.

Summation: Oh my god I am so totally gay for Prince Utena now. I want to swoon just thinking about her.