Zee Blog

Different kind of evening.

This evening was very different than my normal nights.

The greatest divergence was that I actually went out to a club. One of Shauna's coworkers raps(which I wasn't too interested in), but found myself going just for the hell of it. It was nice to go out, it really was. And Shauna has a hot little Japanese friend. Not that she interests me, mind you.

Cough. Cough.

Anyways...

My father came home today from his trip to Texas. He was there for some military conference, and upon returning he was kind of a dick, but yet helpful, all in the same ball of wax.

My dad simply thinks that my depression would go away if I went out running every day. Now, I grant you, exercise is a great way of upping your emotional status. I know this very well. It realeases endorphins in the mind, etc., yatta yatta, blah blah blah, but the thing is: exercising isn't going to take away years of depression and my other issues.

He offered, in trade of me finishing that website and that comic for him: a year long membership at the gym. It's something I've really been wanting lately, but known I couldn't really afford.

The other thing that made this a differnt night in a good way was the possibility of an early Christmas present.

I've always been artistic. In High School I didn't want to be a writer, I wanted to be an artist, but I never worked for it as much as I should have. I played video games instead.

Then I ended up meeting my friend Mario who I've lost contact with over the years after High School(Which was my fault). Mario is simply an astonishing artist. When I became close friends with him I became depressed about my own artistic talents, because they were nowhere near as great as his. There was, however, one thing I did have that he didn't: the ability to create stories.

Together we began to work on a few comics with one another. I still have a bunch of rough sketches strewn about of my characters brought to stunning life. However, Mario was a strong Catholic and nearly 80% of my ideas came into conflict with his religious views, and so we never could quite meet eye-to-eye with one another.

As for my own artistic ability, I've had art teachers have me show them my artwork. They were generally amazed by it. The only issue with it is this: I can copy. I can copy something to the 't'. You give me a picture and time and I can give you an exact copy. Yet, I can't really sit down with a blank piece of paper in front of me and draw something out of nothing.

When I told them this they simply said: "That's the first step." All I needed was some proper schooling and I would most likely be drawing at whatever level I wanted.

I used to get discouraged easily.

Anyways, I'm going way off base here: back to the early Christmas present.

So, in the past couple of months, hell, years, I've joked about creating a web comic. For those of you not versed in what a "web comic" is, I suggest you go to my favorites:

www.penny-arcade.com
www.vgcats.com
www.gucomics.com
www.pvponline.com
www.machall.com

...just to name a few.

Anyways, getting back into all of this Photoshop stuff and my father wanting me to do all of this artwork for money, I've kind of become warmer to the idea of developing my artistic side a bit.

This is where the present comes in.

There are wonderful creations of man called graphic tablets. They're basically drawing pads for your computer. With these beautiful inventions you can draw something on a pad and "voila" you have it staring back at you from Photoshop, or whatever poison you choose.

Simply put: I want one, and so I hinted at my dad - okay, beat him with- that this is something I would like for Christmas. He simply asked, "Is this something you could use now for what you are doing for me and Monte(the man I'm doing the website for)?"

I replied like an obedient gerbil, "Yes."

He said, "Okay, well, let's see about getting you one tomorrow or something." All I have to say is, "That's shit hot."

So many people have asked me, "Why don't you draw your own comics? You have the ideas, why not draw them?" Well, maybe I can make that a possibility sometime in the near future.

We'll see. I know I would like to maybe start it all out by doing a web comic or something, because I'm insane enough to pull it off me thinks.

Not sure. Self....esteem...collapsing around my idea. Argh!

I am such a retard.