Zub Tales

Fireworks bursting outside. I can see them exploding out the living room window while I digitally paint until my eyes bleed. It made me smile.

The work that piled up over the weekend is now kicking my ass from here to Wednesday. Just today, I painted 4 NPC headshots and a full body pic of a Derro evil dwarf for Dungeon Magazine. They turned out really decent actually, which is odd considering the mad ass crunch of time involved. Still, I started working at around 11am today and am wrapping up now at 1am with only 2 meals in there as breaks. Crazy, crazy stuff… apparently the pressure is forcing my brain into good art mode. They may be turning out nice, but I’ll be thankful when it’s all handed in.

I’m finally getting a better handle on digitally painting. I felt quite confident with it for a change.

Gotta sleep. My head hurts and my throat feels a bit raw. Anime North went surprisingly well. I’ll have photos and a full rundown probably on my next post.

Tomorrow (well, today technically) is Gal’s birthday. Unbelievable. Now we’re BOTH old 😉

G’Night.

After my work schedule got rearranged a bit, I’m now swamped with work. Unbelievably, I’m attending Anime North this weekend in the midst of the chaos. Not completely wise, but Erik needs some back-up at the con and I need to drop off checks and books to artists anyways. On top of that, I’m waiting for feedback on rough sketches and inked line art for coloring, so I couldn’t get ahead right now even if I wanted to. Fun, fun, fun.

All in all, stresses are hitting me from all sides. I’m trying to make some changes in the way I’m using my work time compared to my free time. It’s something that I’ve known needed to be done for a while, but have put off… until now.

The work is great, the projects are great, but I need to pace myself better and make sure I have other time too. Even if that other time is just something as simple as reading a book or taking a walk or watching a movie. I do those things now, but they’re sporadic, uneven and badly planned out.

Pounding at some images for Dungeon Magazine, I have a good feeling about them. The line art is confident, but not overly clean and stiff or lifeless. It’s a balance I’ve been trying to strike in my line work and one I think I’m slowly but surely winning, barring small setbacks. Obviously, as soon as I can post some of the art, I will. It’s hard to talk about aspects of it without examples I can show…

I’m groggy from a short sleep last night and some restless nights before. Gotta fully wake up, get some food and get dressed… it’s almost noon.

My parents came by to take me for a birthday dinner. We chatted, got caught up and came back to the apartment to hang out. We ended up watching a few episodes of Bullshit, which lead to discussion. This show really ignites conversation in people, trust me. I end up having one of the most frank discussions with my parents ever. Suddenly, we’re talking about sex, drugs, drinking… all those taboo subjects you never, ever talk to your parents about. It becomes this amusing tit-for-tat and it’s kind of mesmerizing.

Purging fears as to what should and shouldn’t be broached when my parents are around.

I don’t think it’s something that’ll happen all the time, seems like it’ll just be tonight.

The terrible rumors are all true… it’s my birthday today and I’m now a ripe old 28.

The year just burst forward with so much to do and here I am. Some days I feel much older, usually when my muscles are sore or my sleep schedule is out of whack. Most days I don’t feel like I’m looking at 30 just over the next couple of bends.

You’d think that being 28 would mean I’m pretty well settled into the whole “being an adult” business. After ten years of adulthood, most people would much consider it old hat.

I think being really on my own here at the apartment for the summer is actually proving the opposite. For some reason it makes me feel like a little kid. I go to grab groceries and I’m wandering around the aisles wondering if someone’s gonna tell me to put the sugar-heavy cereal back, leave the clubhouse that is my apartment and go to bed at a reasonable hour. It’s not like Gal did any of those things or was some sort of Den Mother here, but her absence makes me feel a bit lost, like I’m doing all these things for the first time. It’s very odd. My life has no schedule currently and I’m trying to put more order into it bit by bit.

Speaking of which, the apartment is getting more organized. I’ve been trying to set aside a bit of time each day to get little parts of it in order. Those things that should have been done when we first moved in, but we couldn’t find the time.

All in all, 28 looks like it’s going to be pretty damn good. I compare it to where I was a year ago, and I’m astonished… last year we had returned to Toronto and were trying to figure out how we could both go to school and stay afloat. Now, we’re both having summer adventures and pushing towards our dreams.

Jimbo hits 28, and the goatee gives way to the soul patch…

PS: Oh yeah, my website‘s been updated with some newer art and what-not.

Having no real schedule is sort of eating my brain.

Going to bed at strange hours, then waking up typically at 7-8am no matter what time I go to bed. I work or putter away around the apartment until I suddenly realize that I didn’t eat lunch (or was that breakfast) and that the sun is getting ready to set. Hermit like lazy tendencies kick in for half a day, and then suddenly I decide to be a neat freak, only it’s midnight. So before I go to bed I’m doing the dishes, folding laundry and taking out the garbage.

Work is getting done. Did two card pieces from start to finish yesterday, which felt good. I colored one up with typical comic “cuts” and Photoshop gradients, then did the second one very painterly using the watercolor tools in Corel Painter. Good practice, though more proof of my extreme inability to just go down one path and master it. Oh well…

Luckily, Gal’s been on ICQ quite a bit in the evenings and we chat a bit on the phone while she’s at work once in a while. It sounds like she’s got some really good projects to work on, which is very cool. She’s slowly but surely getting acclimatized. I don’t assume that’s easy or that it’ll be a constant upwards progression, but as long as she keeps working at it, I’m pretty sure it’ll work out well.

Cooking for one is an impossibility. I end up with tiny pockets of leftovers or underestimate and cook too little. Food that I would normally do more with (add spices or cheese or whatever) I tend to just cook it barebones because there’s no one else to enjoy it with. That’s not meant to sound as depressing as it reads.

I’ve never lived without a roomate or family around. I’ve never been completely on my own for more than 3 days or so. This is a bit of an education in willpower. The will to stay organized, especially working from home. The will to actually shave my face, even when no one will know if I did or not. It should be interesting… luckily some of my friends have been warned by Gal to check up on me, lest I become a wild jungle hermit or something.

I’ve been watching episodes of the show “Penn & Teller – Bullshit” since before Gal left. It’s a surprisingly well done show ripping the veil off of superstitions (ouiji boards, ghosts, ufos, etc.) as well as societal things we take for granted (the war on drugs, bottled water, recycling, crime, etc.). It’s a really well crafted blend of education and entertainment. Even the worst episodes are pretty good and the best ones have actually changed my perception on some pretty ingrained things.

Otherwise, things are okay. Lonely, but okay.

The convention season begins…

Baycon went better than I’d anticipated. It took about 45 minutes for me to zip down to Hamilton and find the convention center. I got in just as it opened on Friday and found everything lickety-split. Pauline and Fred from White Wolf had come up for the show and it was a blast hanging out with them for the weekend.

Fred, Me, Pauline. Yes, the goatee is temporarily back.

I’m finding smaller shows like this have quite a bit of appeal. The large shows are amazing because everyone is there and the sheer amount of product and chaos is amazing. But the small cons are a lot more personal. Instead of being shuffled through line ups or pushing shoulder to shoulder, you can chat with people for as long as you want, demo games without feeling pressured and have more room to be goofy.

Fred uses Ether Goggles to see the unseen… or just look damn weird.

I keep forgetting how small the RPG industry can really be. Heading out for drinks and dinner on Friday night, there was lots of shop talk and camaraderie, far more so than any I’ve felt from the comic book industry. No matter what company or person was mentioned, somebody at the table knew them.

It rained all weekend, but the turn out on Saturday was actually a pretty decent. There were several dealers selling used RPG books for cheap, so the White Wolf booth didn’t move many books. Even still, the trip was a way for Fred to touch base with retailers and distributors as well as talk about the promotions for the new World of Darkness coming in August.

Pauline and I at a round table discussion with
Ed Greenwood, the creator of the Forgotten Realms.

Meeting new people is always a plus as well. Talking and spending time with Wil Hindmarch who works on the Feng Shui games and Jeremy Jarvis, a phenomenal watercolor painter, gave me some new insight into companies and projects. It’s amazing hearing how people get into this industry… everyone’s story is so strange and “right place, right time” oriented.

Got tipsy at the hotel lounge on Saturday night and sat around telling stories with the Wolfies and Fantasy Flight boys. Story time over alcohol always seems to consist of drunken tales, brutal injuries, getting sick or some combination of all three. By the time the lounge closed, we’d all been laughing to the point of tears.

I mentioned that I wondered how Gala was doing this weekend and as if on queue, the cel phone rang and I could hear Gala and Brian partying in Atlanta. Gal was obviously in tipsy spirits as well, and she yelled and giggled about the noise at the bar they were at. It was great hearing her happy, knowing that she was out having a good time. I was worried that she would get cold feet about socializing down there, but so far so good.

Helm’s Deep… miniature sized.

Sunday was nice, but a little sad too. For some reason, the con shutting down at the end of the day made me feel really lonely. Ever since I came back from Atlanta I’ve been run off my feet with work and appointments. I think it finally caught up to me that I was heading back to a totally empty apartment and that it would be that way all summer long.

Got in at 1:30am and didn’t head to bed until 4:00. I puttered around the apartment cleaning up the dishes and unpacking. Ended up lying in bed for quite a while before sleep finally overtook me.

I made it back from Atlanta in one piece. I can’t believe that the road trip and everything else actually went almost entirely as planned.

We were stopped at the Canada/US border for half an hour or so. I was worried they’d want tons of information on Gala’s internship, but it turns out they were more worried about me trying to live in the US illegally. In the end, we were let through, but I found the whole thing a bit amusing.

Driving down to Atlanta went quite well. Gal and I missed a turn off in Detroit… that took us on an inadvertent tour of the city’s slums. AFter a few U-Turns and some directions, we got on the I-75. From there it was relatively smooth sailing minus a few traffic slowdowns and nasty rain in Ohio.

Friday morning we made it to Stone Mountain, Georgia and the White Wolf offices. Most of the gang went out with us over the weekend for drinks, some dancing and playing pool. It was actually more low key than normal, which was probably for the best. I don’t think my body is ready for con-season just yet.

Saturday afternoon, Brian took us around Atlanta to some cool shops and neat places. We ended up wandering the stores of the Atlanta Underground and I found a nifty Magic shop that sold magic tricks and taught people how to use them professionally. That was a real blast from the past for me… When I was in Grade 5-6, I thought I was going to grow up to be a Magician or something. After a few demonstrations by the guy running the store, I broke down and indulged in buying a few tricks. It should be fun relearning some magic and playing with that over the summer.

Sunday was our strange quest to the Renaissance Fair. Mike and Justin hatched the idea to crash the Georgia Ren Fair while wearing silly hats and getting hideously drunk.

4 of the brave morons who attacked Ren Fair Georgia.

Although we’d predicted a multitude of freaks would be out in abundance and that we’d be tossed out within an hour or two of arriving, we actually stayed the whole afternoon and had a pretty good time. We were rowdy, stupid and decently soused. Even American beer can taste okay when you need something cold to keep from overheating.

Justin and Mike demonstrate the proper White Wolf fencing technique.

The sun was blazing, and I think the alcohol mixed with the extreme heat slowed down our rampage. By the time we left, everyone was pretty exhausted. Oh yeah, the freaks were out in full force, but really no worse than any convention I’ve been to. Lots of costumes and yelling of “Huzzah” and all that stuff…

White Wolf owns their own pool hall/bar now, so that gave us a good HQ to work from for our weekend entertainment. The bar (called the Independent) serves Strongbow to boot, which instantly raises it several more points in my eyes.

Monday morning I packed up and dropped off Gal at the office. We’d both been going so fast all weekend that we’d barely had time to realize how soon I’d be gone. When she finally saw me off to the car, it hit me quick just before saying good-bye. Even though I thought I wouldn’t cry… it rushed up inside me and we both just held each other and sobbed. I don’t care how unmanly or teenage-romance novel shitty that sounds. I held her tight and had a real reminder of how deeply I feel for her and what we have together.

I made excellent time back to Toronto. The scenery flew by and I drove the entire day barely stopping or feeling tired. The Canadian border was a breeze on the way back, even with a trunk full of White Wolf books for the Udon boys and me.

I woke up this morning to the emptiness of not having her at the apartment. For all the hooplah I’ve made about personal space and having time to myself lately… now it looks like I’m going to eat crow. It’s too quiet and I don’t know if I’ll get used to it. I can’t wait to hear about her adventures down south, though… should be a blast.

Yesterday was a surreal mix of good and bad.

After busting my butt and finishing off my artwork assignments early for a change, I received files from the other artists on the project and realized there were problems. The standard “color correct and add Udon logo” would not work here. More like the “let’s spend 6-7 hours on Photoshop correcting/improving stuff”. Doing little stuff to make sure images are print ready is part of my job, but yesterday felt like I was the janitor, not the Project Manager. Not what I wanted to be doing just a day and a half before we leave for Atlanta. Not in the slightest.

The artwork I finished up looks good. Probably the most solid stuff I’ve done for Exalted yet, in some ways. I hope that feeling lasts. A couple times, I’ve felt good about art pieces I’ve handed in and then by the time they’re in print, I look at them and go “Meh.”. Scott’s Kurtz’s Star Wars 8 page story came out last week with my colors and it looked really nice. I think my colors compliment his line art well and it was really cool seeing it print as well as it looked on screen.

Lunch was good yesterday, the Owner and the Art Director for Guardians of Order came down from Guelph and took me out for a sushi lunch meeting. It was great chatting about how the company started and what projects Udon might be a part of in their near future. Considering how small their company is, it sounds like they’ve made some really smart decisions and have some nice properties to work with. They came back to the apartment afterwards and we played “show and tell”, trading products and talking about which artists could work well with their products. Very cool.

Proving again how strange my job can be, Brian and I ended up having a frantic series of phone calls to discuss Mayan Numerology and the symbolism of wheat stalks. This is important stuff! We both started laughing at the stupidity of these details that are getting worked into some of the art pieces, and Brian’s promised me that the Savant & Sorcerer book will have a Special Thanks to wheat or something like that.

Throwing a little more on my schedule, it looks like I’m going to be attending the Great Canadian Baycon when I get back from Atlanta. It’s a little convention in Hamilton and wouldn’t normally go, but Pauline from White Wolf’s going and she asked if I wanted to show up as well. It’s a hop, skip and a jump away and figured “what the heck”. I hope it’s fun.

Stayed up until 2am putting final touches on the exam my students will be writing today. Madness. Then my body zapped me awake just after 7am. I currently don’t feel tired at all, but I’m assuming that later today my energy will be drained. Guess we’ll wait and see.

The road trip starts tomorrow… it’ll be tough seeing Gala off. Trying not to let it get to me.

The fog is so thick outside, I can’t even see the elementary school across the road from our apartment building. All I need now is the sound of seagulls and I’d swear we were back in Halifax.

Two nights with minimal productivity in a row, but at least it was for good reasons. Frank and Meg stopped in on Friday as a stop over of their trek from Georgia to Ottawa. Meg’s moving to Canada and we offered them a place to crash part way. We played cards, hung out and had a few drinks.

Last night, Joel and Veronica threw a party for Gala to celebrate her internship and heading away for the summer. A bunch of people stopped by and we ate and chatted until after midnight before heading out to look for a place to dance at. The clubs were hopping, but had really expensive cover fees and the wrong kind of music. In the end, that mixed with my ultra-sleepiness cut the night a bit short. Even before we left their apartment I was nodding off, but by the time we hit Queen Street, I was exhausted. I think it’s a combination of work stress and “Gala’s leaving” stress. It’s all happening in less than a week and neither of us can believe it.

Separation anxiety mixed with communication gaffs making us both tense, prickly and vulnerable. Socializing with other people helped a bunch I think, and heading to Atlanta with a road trip instead of just flying down will help too. We leave Thursday and should be in Atlanta after a 16 hour drive some time Friday afternoon/early evening. That gives us the weekend to party and I’ll probably leave Monday at lunch. Driving back through the US by myself is going to be weird, but I actually don’t think I’ll mind. Good time to think and put everything happening around me in perspective.

May might actually be sort of relaxing. I won’t be teaching at that point, the work schedule is looking like it’ll be a little more sane and the conventions aren’t crazy yet. I might get a chance to finally organize all my papers and books here at the apartment. I might get a chance to do some artwork for myself again. Not sure if I’ll be more social or go all “hermit-like”. Guess I’ll have to wait and see.

I got Dave laughing really hard last night at the party… I told him that when we get hideously drunk at the conventions this summer, we need a catch phrase to let the other person know that you’ve gone past the point of no return, drinking-wise. Off the top of my head, I threw out that line from 2001 A Space Odyssey:

“My God, it’s full of stars.”

He cackled like crazy, so we decided that would work well.

Okay, gonna stand on the balcony, enjoy a cool breeze and look out into the emptiness of the fog.

Foggy morning

Spontaneously decided that the term “groceries” will henceforth be known as “foodle”.

Tell all your friends. The revolution starts today.