The USS Quad Damage

I've been drawing again. I'd pretty much stopped for a while. I'm happy that I haven't gotten much worse. That's partially because I now have better materials, and partially because I can't get much worse. I've been trying to get shapes and proportions down, because I have a lot of trouble with them. I'm finding it hard enough to copy stuff, much less trying to draw from my head.

I want to get a nice, unique, quick drawing style so I can start some kind of (web) comic. I've been meaning to make a comic for a while now, but I always get stuck at some point. I've had lots of problems setting things up, storyboarding, characters, and the basic fact that I can't draw the same thing over and over and have it look the same. I've got a couple of ideas I like, but need fleshing out. One is a "sports manga" about cricket. Actually, back when I thought of this, I didn't know sports manga existed. I hadn't heard of Slam Dunk or the one about soccer or (arguably) Hikaru no Go, so I thought it'd be like a way over the top kenshin, except about cricket. I thought it was totally original, except now I know that sports manga is an entire genre. Although, a sports manga about cricket still seems like an original idea.

Speaking about the soccer one, Ray (from high school) read that, and I think that's why he got really into soccer.

The other idea is one about superheroes, except not quite. I mean, the problem with Marvel style superheroes is they've got unrealistic powers from unrealistic sources and are set in an unrealistic world. I'd like to set up a comic in a realistic environment and see if the superheroes still look like good guys. The ideals of truth and justice are bent in such unforseeable ways, and the things that have become acceptable in today's society make it truly hard to choose the right course of action, and today's comics don't deal with that, and I thought it'd be good if mine did. On top of that, there are no superheroes in today's society, and if there were, they probably wouldn't have the same idea of justice as everyone else.

I'm saying all these grand things despite the fact that I'm in my thesis year, and I still haven't even done fwoosh. I'm encountering technical problems, namely getting a nice fwoosh sound, and getting the MIDI file I have into a wave format. Once I get that done, it'll be on the DVD and ready for watching.

I'd like to segue into this, but I can't, so... I donated blood for the first time ever. It was a strange feeling. It was even stranger looking, because the thing that pumps the blood out is your heart. I mean, I know that's obvious, but just seeing blood come out in that way is kinda weird. Now I've got these 2 bruise thingies. I don't know what they are exactly. Internal bleeding or something I think. The lady was nice but I got kinda freaked when she was patching me up and said "He just doesn't want to stop [bleeding]." I have this weird fear of a needle snapping off while it's still inside my vein. Unlikely, but... you know... possible. They put gauze around the arm when it was finished. Gauze is the best :)