SEP		Oct 2008				NOV
28	29	30	1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31	1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8

Email the author at qwanderer7+lgc@gmail.com

The Elves of LleuGarnock is Copyright Irene Pitcairn<2008-2009. The Elves of LleuGarnock is hosted on ComicGenesis, a free webhosting and site automation service for webcomics.

LleuGarnock HOME Archive     --- CHAPTERS & Sections     --- Chapter 1: Amaranta's Grandchildren 1-1: The Berry Incident 1-2: Destiny & Mr. Cat 1-3: By Garnock River 1-4: Pursuit of Fruit Chapter 2: Gemini Alone 2-1: The Dangers of Thinking 2-2: Healing 2-3: Destiny or Somesuch 2-4: Humans in Town Chapter 3: Laws and Secrets 3-1: Comforts of Home 3-2: Colliding Worlds 3-3: Living History 3-4: Gifts Chapter 4: Calindell Roads 4-1: Blue Girl 4-2: Toad's Story 4-3: Getting Along 4-4: Arledge Chapter 5: Under the Full Moon 5-1: Black Cat Inn 5-2: Corn Cat 5-3: Helpless 5-4: Story of the Opals Chapter 6: Prisoners of the Earth 6-1: Bitter Words 6-2: Kings and Constraints 6-3: The Shape of a Prison 6-4: Lightless Chapter 7: Bonds of Hardship 7-1: Differences of Opinion 7-2: Truitt's Tale 7-3: Strange Magic 7-4: The Black-Haired Man 7-5: The Evil-Hearted Monk Chapter 8: Shedding Light 8-1: Curses on Verses 8-2: Who Needs Keys? 8-3: The Sacrifice 8-4: Prayers Chapter 9: An Unequal Fight 9-1: Drawing the Curtains 9-2: Power of the Staff 9-3: To the Ends of the Earth 9-4: And Back Home

October 9, '08

There's a new fanart in the gallery, with pretty colors! Go see it!

Page 105 is taking a long time to sketch, and scripts 107 and 108 are being stubborn, so I might soon start feeling like I'm not making much progress. I still feel very productive now; a lot of my time has been spent pondering the interaction on page 107, which is a perfectly valid and necessary use of my time. Plus I have the script for 109; I've had it for a long time now. It's that one that keeps getting pushed back. Now I'm pretty sure it's found its place in the order. Then a little later in the chapter I have three scripts and some more ideas for dialogue, and a new outline of the next flashback. It's really important and it's going to be interesting and well done and it's really the last flashback until at least chapter six and probably later!

Yeah, I've gotten some grief about overusing flashbacks. As I told McDuffies, I think I'm addicted to them. I'm fascinated by my characters' pasts and I don't create my plots in a linear way, so I always think they fit in well and they're fascinating, because my brain jumps backward and forward in time anyway.

I've changed my mind again. I really think I'm going to get the bigger Cintiq. Sure, it's nineteen pounds, and my office is the corner of the living room couch, so I'd have to work with that weight on my lap, but what I didn't fully realize until I read some of the reviews is that the smaller Cintiq's screen is only six inches high! And the whole thing is still too wide to fit into a standard laptop bag. That somehow doesn't seem right. I think I'll go for the one where the main problem is I don't have the right office setup for it. That can be changed much more easily than problems with the device.

I still don't know about the timing. I had to buy some new brushes, and I decided to try a slightly more expensive type, but the Cintiq certainly won't pay for itself by replacing brushes. My right hand is getting sore and crampy from using a mouse so much, which I have to admit is more from playing games than coloring, but it would still be nice to be able to transfer the burden of comic-work completely to my left hand. So it would be nice to get a tablet soon. On the other hand, I really need a new scanner, and I don't want to buy too many expensive machines at once. On the third hand, I could switch to photographing my sketches and then ink on the tablet without too much trouble.

James went out and signed up for FIOS while I was gone. We won't get it for a couple of weeks, but it'll be nice to have more choices for background noise while I'm comicking, and there might even be some things that I can get James to watch with me! He just wanted the fast internet, but whenever he raved about it I would go "just internet, not TV? Then I don't care." And I would stop listening to him. I really didn't. It's not like our DSL is stressed by our internet use, and the limited choice of shows I have now means I actually turn off the TV once in a while. But somehow he got the idea that I wanted FIOS TV.

He also bought a case of Shards of Alara packs. He just keeps buying stuff. I'm naturally frugal, but the fact is I could buy the Cintiq, a scanner, the Kindle, and all the DVDs I've been wanting, right now. That actually kind of scares me. I know someone who got a million dollars and spent it all in about three years. I'm not going to do anything like that, but the concept tends to hover in my brain when I consider buying three thousand dollars' worth of technology all at once.

I'd feel much happier about it if I was actually making money off of my comic, but the project is definitely losing money. This doesn't bother me. While I like the idea of profit, I'd feel awfully greedy asking for donations or begging people to buy stuff from my store. I don't need it. And so I'm torn between the idea of money being a sort of validation of one's usefulness to the community, and the feeling that I've been incredibly lucky and I can't ask for anything more.

This is made worse by the fact that a lot of my friends struggle with their finances, but at the same time some of the same people seem to think that I should be trying to accumulate more money, maybe by getting a real job. But whenever I consider that, it comes down to the fact that I would much rather spend the time thinking of how to avoid spending what I have. Thinking of how much people spend in America these days, it seems just as profitable.

I could go on, but I'll stop. This is supposed to be a comic artist blog, after all, and I've strayed from the discussion of buying tablets. Not that that's stopped me in the past. Oh well.