Zub Tales

Up early. 5am kind of early…

My stomach is a bit in knots. So much to do and I just want to sleep.

We picked up the keys to our new apartment yesterday. Looking through the empty rooms and imagining where all the furniture will go while our voices echoed off the walls…it felt good. I want all of our stuff to be there now, but I know that it’ll be a weekend of shifting and exhaustion before it’s at that point. But it’s getting closer and I’m nervously excited about it all. Phone service starts there on Saturday. Internet kicks in on Tuesday.

More projects came in for Udon. My God, I don’t know how we’re going to get them all done. My boss had to scoop some of the artists I’d earmarked for other projects so that some new comic work could get done. I think I can give every one who’s left a little bit more and make it happen. I’ve just gotta make sure that the styles of 5-6 different artists isn’t too jarring to any of the projects. I know it’ll work out, but being in the midst always looks like it’s overwhelming.

As far as the Exalted card game goes…we’ve got over 50 of them colored and approved so far out of 300. Not as many as I’d like, but reasonable given everything else happening. Once the move is done I’m going to power through some of the coloring I haven’t had time for and drill out some pictures for Aspect Earth and the Warcraft: Lands of Conflict RPG books.

Got a great haircut late last week from a strange lady. She never asked me to change my head position while she cut, she just grabbed my face and pushed it around, or crooked my head at a weird angle and held it there with her left hand like some kind of pinching crab claw while she cut with her right one. I was really irritated in the midst of getting twisted and pushed around, but I had to admit that the final product was really good. Gala told me I had to go back to this woman next time I needed a cut, even if she was a crazy crab-handed bitch.

Heard news that Helix, the studio I worked at in Halifax, just laid a ton of people off leaving a virtual skeleton crew. Guys who had been there for years are out of a job, including my buddy Cornflake. It really reinforced, again, the smart risk Gala and I took by coming back to Toronto. If I would have been trapped out there without a job, I don’t know what I would have done or how that would’ve crushed my self esteem or my relationship. Things were already rocky in Halifax with Gala and I when we left (notice the lack of Newsletter updates during those months)…that would’ve probably shattered it. Obviously, things are amazing now in comparison.

The weather’s slowly warming up here and the sun’s staying up longer in the evening…good things are happening. My brain’s awake even though my body wants to rest.

Looks like the body loses out today. Too much to think about.

Gal kicked me in the head on Friday when she correctly pointed out that I was procrastinating on artwork for the Exalted card game. I was so wrapped up in managing the rest of the crew, teaching, running around and video games that I was slowly slipping behind on my own deadlines.

Every so often it’s good to get your ass kicked like that, get up and energize yourself. So I set goals over the weekend and met them, tearing into more art roughs and coloring other pics I’d finished drawing. I really took my time to color up a pic I did of the Exalted equivalent of a Goblin (the Fae Hobgoblin) and it came together really well. One of the best things I’ve colored.

Then tonight, a really good drawing groove…

Back at Aurenya, Nick and Omar used to drill me on my quality of drawing. My lines weren’t precise enough, I wasn’t thinking when I laid down form and detail. I would argue and go back into my shell, wondering if I’d ever improve…sometimes I’d go over a week without practicing drawing at all, stupidly.

Sometimes I get a good drawing and I feel like I’m headed in the right direction. Usually my skills waffle back to their old mistakes.

Tonight though, I really felt like it clicked with the two characters I drew and I think I can make it click again more consistently. My quality of line is improving and my understanding of line and form is moving forward…strange that I’m stepping back and seeing it now.

Confident, fine lines instead of my usual hesitant, shivered and feathered shapes. Angles with curves and strong overlaps instead of easy angles and blobby soft shapes. Looks like someone else drew it. Somebody good 🙂

The ultimate irony is that I can’t show any of you this stuff. White Wolf has got a lockdown on this artwork until they start advertising the Exalted card game. As proud as I am of the work, it stays under wraps for now. *sigh*

But the pics are here in front of me. Maybe I’ll look at them tomorrow and see mistakes, but for now, they look good and that’s worth recording here.

Yesterday, Joey Manley at Modern Tales asked me if I would mind giving up my spot on the website so a new cartoonist (a cartoonist who’s actually updating their work) could move in with some new material. It makes total sense from a business point of view and as the editor, I would’ve probably kicked my own ass out many months ago once it became obvious that I didn’t have time to create new web comic material. Joey’s always polite and I appreciated that he asked me about it instead of just bumping me out. I haven’t added content to Modern Tales since May 15th of last year, 9 months ago.

It feels strange.

Joining Modern Tales was a tiny step in validating my artwork and/or telling myself that I could do this for a living. It wasn’t some huge amount of money, but it was mine and people were reading it and putting it on Modern Tales in some small way made me a “professional”. I might have gotten more people to read the story if I’d kept it free, but I wanted to hook up with the crew that Joey had formed and see if I could help them pioneer something different on the web. In turn, I met some great people, went to San Diego Comic-Con and inadvertently changed my life.

I’ve still got the first e-mail where Joey asked me if I’d be interested, back on January 26th, 2002. 2 years later…man, have things changed.

I still have stories to tell, but now I don’t know how much time I have to get them all drawn and colored up. I still want to create things, and the art I’m doing for work has been a great way for me to improve those skills. I look at some of the pages in Makeshift Miracle and they look raw and messed up. But warts and all, they’re part of the path I was on, finding my way. Having those 3 pages a week to see that evolution in my work was really important.

Joey is hoping that I can find a good printer and have Makeshift collected into a little graphic novel format. I’ve got to do some looking around here and call people about printing rates. Probably won’t even be able to do that until after the March 1st move.

In the end I guess it’s a little change with big memories attached.

But overall… things are going pretty good. Haven’t been as productive on my own artwork as I have been in managing other people’s, but I should still be on target to hit my deadlines.

It’s quite the maelstrom lately managing all the artwork for the upcoming Exalted Card Game. So many pieces to pour through. Last week I had every Exalted RPG book laid out on the floor double checking what pieces we needed on the company FTP so that the artists would have enough reference to draw from.

February is going to whip by and then Gal and I will be in the new apartment. I can’t wait to get that all organized and build our place up bit by bit. Both of us can keep some odd hours and it’ll be more relaxed doing that in our own place.

I think we may have a housewarming sort of party once we settle in. Gala and I went to a nice dinner party at our friends Veronica and Joel’s a few weeks ago and that spurred the thought of us having one too down the road. A dinner party sounds really formal and adult. Next thing you know I’ll be wondering if my dishes match my dining room carpet or something. Hmm, we’ll have to liven it up then. A theme of some sort, or just good old alcohol.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Oh shit, it’s February.

Um, hi…sorry I haven’t been in touch very much since Christmas time. The whole mad schedule and all that. Things are changing as always and time is moving at faster than expected speeds around me, through me and under my feet.

The new year is starting off strongly however. Lots of work, teaching, artwork and projects to manage. Probably one of the busiest times I’ve had at Udon mixed with the new part-time teaching position at Seneca. It’s a good kind of crazy schedule.

Gala and I found an apartment and we’ll be moving in March 1st to the new place. My Aunt and Uncle have been wonderful and staying here helped us get back on our feet after the financial hit in Halifax. We’re coming out ahead and looking forward to unpacking boxes that have sat at my Grandmother’s in storage for almost a year.

Unbelievably, this is probably my last Newsletter e-mail. It’s not that I don’t care or don’t want to stay in touch. I just realized how much easier it is to put the journal on the web instead of trying to keep up with people’s e-mail addresses and dodge their junk mail filters. From now on, you can keep up to date with me at:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/zubkavich/

All the old Newsletter e-mails are archived there, crazily enough. That’s 130 posts dating all the way back to March 1999. If you ever wanted to read and see the ebbs and flows in my life, you can start here:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/zubkavich/432.html

and click the little “next post” arrow through as you read each entry up to the present. Archiving them brought back a slew of memories, good feelings and bad. It made me glad I’ve kept them and helps me put a date to events I might have forgotten. I need to add some more photos, especially to the convention posts from this summer, but everything else is there.

If you have a live journal, feel free to send me the link if I don’t already have it.

So, now your e-mail In-Box is free from my pelting. I hope you stop by the journal site. Feel free to comment or send me e-mails.

Another Christmas come and gone. That didn’t take long at all. Another year hurtling past me and the excitement continues. I hope everyone had a fulfilling holiday with family or friends close at hand.

The Udon Christmas party was fun. It was amazing having almost all the crew there in one place at the same time. Even though I knew that the company had around 30 artists, I was still surprised at seeing and interacting with so many all under one banner. We held the party at a huge Buffet place in Scarborough and after the food passed out gifts randomly based on who’s name was drawn from a box. I ended up with a “Duff Beer” Simpsons baseball cap. I won’t wear it much, but it’ll sit somewhere prominent in the studio space anyways.

Heading to Edmonton for Christmas was a good little break. It was a good way to change the scenery for a bit, see Gala’s family and unplug. My allergies nagged me for a bit out there, but allergy medication came to the rescue and all in all, it went quite well. With so many people packed into the house and the chaos that Christmas can bring, there were definite moments where I wanted to just vanish and be a hermit, but I think that comes with any social overload.

Christmas with Gala’s family at the farm is so different than with my family in Toronto. The orderly course of events that my family has gives way to a strange anything-goes at Gala’s. It has its advantages and disadvantages, of course. It’s not a restrictive and can be extremely comfortable, but occasionally you have no idea when anyone is going to be making a meal or even what people are doing for entertainment. We had fun; Gala’s sister Arwen gave us a solid stone Gargoyle that will have to be shipped to Toronto and on Christmas Eve we shot fireworks off into the pitch blackness of the night sky.

Gala and I went to see Return of the King last night. I won’t spoil it for any of you, but I will say this: it’s possibly the best movie I’ve ever seen. It’s a ride that will make your jaw drop and your heart swell, seriously. I thought the other two films were good and this one is so far above and beyond them that I couldn’t believe it. The audience was stunned into silence, no word of a lie. You could hear the odd sniffle of tears, that was about it.

Walking out of the theatre, Gala and I hugged and had a moment as rain sprinkled down on us. In the three years that the Lord of the Rings movies have come out, we’ve seen each one in a different city where we were living. Calgary, Halifax and now Toronto. What a crazy ride. The only constant in our lives over the past 3 years seems to be the two of us together and watching those movies each holiday season. That probably sounds overly dramatic, but I don’t really care because it makes sense to me. It was the right time and a good moment to see what the two of us have been through together. The relationship and our love has been yanked across the country, ripped out by its roots and replanted twice, torn holes in our heads and hearts but it’s still there. That has to mean something…I just want to figure it all out so that it lasts.

Moving back to Toronto in April, joining Udon in June, teaching again in a couple weeks…2003 has been a great evolution and a big surprise. I don’t think 2004 will have as many changes and upheavals, but I’m okay with that. The road I’m currently on feels right so far, so I’d rather just accelerate instead of look for an off-ramp.

The year is winding down, Christmas is almost here and the last couple of weeks have streaked by and hyper speed. Work, Christmas shopping and lots of errands before Gala and I head to Edmonton have made things even more chaotic than usual.

Gala and I were actually able to get away for 2 days to my parent’s cottage, which was a much needed breather and a chance for her and I to spend some time one-on-one. That kind of time has been preciously small lately, so we both pushed to make the cottage trip a reality. When it was all done, we were both really glad we’d done it. It was a nice drive, some hiking and just hanging out with a roaring fire. Good memories built there and conversation like we haven’t had in many months.

Back home, work has been a bit of a scramble, but now seems finally under control. A couple big projects will be starting right around the same time I start teaching, which should make things positively frantic, but always an adventure. 2004 is looking to be just as wild as this year was, and that’s saying quite a bit.

The Udon Christmas party is tonight and it looks like it’ll be a good way to touch base with almost all the artists. Food, drink and some business conversation will creep in there. It’s really rare to get so many of the artists together because we’re all working from home, so it’s important to have these types of get togethers.

My brother, Gal and I got my Dad a neat Christmas present. He opened it yesterday so he could see it before I left on my trip. We snuck out his favorite album of Russian orchestral music and had it digitized as a high quality CD. You can’t buy that album on CD (trust me I looked) and him being able to always have it without it degrading any further really surprised him. He actually got weepy when he played it, which is always the sign of an important gift. It’s getting harder and harder to buy gifts for my parents, so finding unique things like that is a plus.

The books and projects I worked on over the summer and fall are finally seeing print. The latest issue of Dungeon Magazine (#106) is out with my collaborative cover image and a few pieces inside too. The Exalted RPG book Kingdom Of Halta is out as well, with interiors by me and other Udon members. An Everquest RPG book, as well as a Warcraft one should be out any time now and more magazine stuff next month as well. Before the summer, 6-7 more books will be out. Strange and wonderful times indeed…if you’d have told me a year ago I’d be doing this, I’d have told you that you should be committed. Now, I’m just riding the roller coaster and trying not to lose my lunch.

Saw a pile of people downtown at Dave’s new LARP game; A strange mix of old and new players getting into a new game. It was a bit surreal, but quite fun as well. If my schedule holds up, I should be able to attend the sessions once per month. Unlike the old game, we’re all far too busy to get together every two weeks.

That’s the rundown. Christmas loot and a recap of the Edmonton trip should be in your In-Boxes before New Year’s Eve. To all my friends and family on this crazy list: Happy Holidays and good cheer.

After last Newsletter’s movie rant about Matrix Revolutions, we now return to our regular Jimbo-centric programming.

Good things seem to be afoot. Stresses as always and rough spots, but I think I’m hitting an okay stride with all sorts of things happening in my life right now. Trying not to get too distracted, trying to remember all the important stuff.

Gala’s headed to Edmonton for the Christmas holidays. I’m still figuring out if I’m headed with her for it as well. We’ve talked about setting up a toggled X-Mas schedule: one year in Toronto, the next in Edmonton. As we get it nailed down I’ll let you guys know.

The hard work from the summer is slowly turning into the paychecks of the fall. A tiny trickle currently, but by the end of November it looks like a good chunk of money owed will be coming in. It’s the scary part of freelancing, the 30-60-90 day waits while clients pay for work handed in. All the other jobs I’ve had were based around a standard pay period. The key seems to be making sure that in 2 months there will be equal or more money constantly arriving.

Seeing books and products with artwork on it that I participated in is still really strange. I picked up the latest issue of Dungeon Magazine and there were some pieces I penciled and one that I colored in there. Strange seeing them there on the page, very cool too though. Next month will be particularly odd because I collaborated with one of our painters to do the cover image for Dungeon. It’ll be there right on the cover. Bizarre indeed. Between that and a bunch of other books coming out from White Wolf and other companies, it’s going to be really wild.

It seemed a good time to clean up my personal website:

http://www.makeshiftmiracle.com/ZUB.html

Gave it a slightly different look and jettisoned artwork that had been on there far too long or that I wasn’t happy with. I think I kept so much of it on there as some sort of a badge of honor. A weird “Look, I’ve done all sorts of things so I must be sort of an okay artist.” Chopping it down will hopefully spur me to “fill” it up again with new and better artwork. Time will tell.

I’ve been reading a lot of Live Journal’s lately. For those who don’t know, a Live Journal is a website where you can quickly jot your thoughts down and put it up for all to see (or limit the posts so that only friends can log-in to see). It’s such a strange phenomenon. People typing their inner most thoughts or building up ideas over the course of weeks and showing it off for so many people to browse and read. Random ones of strangers aren’t much to look at, but the ones of people I know are fascinating. You get a totally different window into who they are or what types of things are happening in their life. A couple people I met at conventions over the summer I now feel like I know better and a few people in Toronto that I didn’t even like I now have a totally different perception of. One artist I know (who isn’t on this Newsletter list) who has art I really enjoy I now find annoying and bitter because of posts on her Live Journal page. I’ve even thought about ditching this e-mail list for a site that people can choose to read or not, but I haven’t decided yet. Let me know what you think.

The micropayment system called BitPass that I put Makeshift Miracle on in the summer has been surprisingly successful. I checked up on it yesterday for the first time in many weeks. It’s not like I’m making a horde of money from it, but I’m getting a few sales of it every day even without advertising or promoting the site. That’s pretty amazing; $2-3 every day for something that runs itself. I intend to make another web comic push and that should increase things as well. The BitPass payment system is still in beta, so when it fully unfolds, that’ll be another booster.

The cool January opportunity that I mentioned in my October 15th e-mail is a reality. Instead of going to Seneca in January for Maya 3D animation training, I’m going to be teaching part-time at the school as part of their 2D faculty. Weird turn around, eh? Classic drawing and 2D artwork just keep holding on to me for dear life, so I’ll resist the dark side of 3D for the time being. It’ll be a good way to bring in a bit of extra cash on a regular basis and reconnect me to teaching, which I really enjoyed. The fact that I don’t have to give up working for Udon full time doesn’t hurt either.

All these career things that I like (comics, RPGs, teaching) packaged into one span of time – I’ve gotta pinch myself.

That’s the report. Thanks as always to the people who let me know how they’re doing.

After picking up Gala from the University yesterday, we decided to zip out and see if we could catch a showing of Matrix Revolutions. Grabbing tickets, we had a nice dinner and then sat down to enjoy the show. When it comes to big movie releases like this and the opening credits come up, I just try to focus on the flick and cross my fingers (figuratively speaking) that it’s not going to suck.

But it did suck.

It sucked in a black hole reaching, clawing and gasping kind of way, draining everything of light and sound. Holy crap, did it ever suck.

A lot of people were unimpressed with Matrix Reloaded, but I found it relatively entertaining and there were only a few scenes that were wince-worthy. But Revolutions is a 2 hour eye-rolling embarrassment. Cardboard worthy emotional scenes intermixed with seizure-inducing special effects. Telling us unnecessary things instead of showing them but then showing us a point over and over and over and over again. I appreciate people trying to break the rules with movies, but some storytelling conventions exist for a reason. Use the tools to make the material work and break them if you can make something more effective, don’t go against the grain just because you want to do something different.

I won’t spoil the movie, so you can still read this even if you haven’t seen the flick.

There were so many moments where people stood around asking moronic questions or paused for dramatic effect that I just wanted to scream “DO SOMETHING, ANYTHING!” But even when the action finally hit, I didn’t care about any of it. 30 minutes goes by without Neo, Morpheus or Trinity being in the film (that’s not an exaggeration by the way) and it’s just become this bloated mess with new people I don’t care about. Worse still, when we do get back to the main characters, I realize that they’re not worth watching either. They’re either doing the exact same thing they’ve done before or are spontaneously useless, suddenly unable to be anything but victims.

Classic sequel-itis: all the good character growth gets used up in the first film and then people just become walking talking parodies of themselves.

People die, a little kid stiffly tells us cute and annoying things, billions of machines explode, characters spout platitudes, cookies get baked and the universe is saved by kung-fu (oh wait, no it isn’t…that’s just 10 minutes of action that ends up being unnecessary).

I didn’t need to walk away from the theatre with all the answers about the Matrix. But the gaping holes and useless information we’re left with make it all the more annoying.

Heh. I’m kind of surprised I filled a whole Newsletter e-mail with my movie review. Oh well, maybe I can save you guys $12 and a few hours of your life. More useful information next time I write. Promise.