Confronting the Crisis Before it Becomes Current.

I've got the skeletal diagram for this and a standing pose in my big sack of drawings. Note the pattern -- loosely based on the saddle-shaped markings of the big constrictors. Also note the bite in the spines on the back -- I got the idea from an Edmontosaurus skeleton with a likely-Tyrannosaurus bite in about the same spot.

The finished version was executed entirely in Expressions, an under-rated and under-used vector drawing program. I was going for the feathered edge of comic-book style inking -- it didn't quite come off but there may be cause for further experimentation.

So school starts up and I assume that I'm going to fall back into a nice rut. It hasn't happened. Since I've got an enforced couple of days off I've had time to think about how I'm stepping on my dick here.

What it is, is the two classes that I'm taking are both very important and are designed to cater to my bad habits. Me, I'm an institutional type -- give me an assignment and a deadline and you'd better make the assignment hard and the deadline soon. Those are the circumstances under which I function best.

But in both classes -- have I mentioned the classes? Digital Drawing and Digital Printmaking -- have substantial amounts of self-paced tutorials that you're intended to do at home. No specific dates, no deadlines, no homework associated with them.

I know what I'm like -- I tend not to do that shit. But getting past that is something I need to do. I also need to start working in my sketchbook again, get those visual chops sharp.

So what I need to do is spend a little time every day in the sketchbook and working the tutorials for Photoshop and Illustrator.

But I also need to get the novel back on track. I just have not been writing enough the past couple of weeks. I'm on the downhill slope for the first volume and I'm anxious to get it out to a fresh set of readers.

What's derailed me? In order; first this site, then the Bonelands art show. I need to do a post a day on the site -- to do two posts a day for a week or so and then burn out is typical Sean.

So I need to get myself a daily slog going. Fuck getting the show together in three weeks -- the show is not the first priority. First comes the novel, then comes learning Illustrator and Photoshop, then comes the show, then the sketchbook, and then comes the blog. And none of them are disposable.

Just start doing a little every day, oafboy.

And a note for the curious readers (You weren't listening, were you? I spotted that prairie dog lift of the head when the word readers appeared...); alas, my fever failed to reach the fullest pitch of delirium. As a connoisseur of the indeterminate states that border consciousness I was eagerly anticipating the moment when my inner sea would catch me in a hot red wave and dash me against the jagged shores of the Isle of Madness so as to cause me to wake writhing hallucinating and drenched in perspiration; instead I just seem to be getting better. Oh well. Can't have everything.