Challenge: call in sick to work, citing any of the following ailments:
-hiccups
-dandruff
-chapped lips
-a hangnail
-an ingrown hair
-halitosis
-eyelash in your eye
-hypochondria

Feel free to add to the list! ^_^

Ahem, seriously... I recently caught an icky cold that was going around my workplace. That combined with the 12 hours a day I've been working for most of this month (so horrible), and I haven't had much time to work on Unholy. ;_; I'll post the next three pencils to my scraps tomorrow, and hopefully I'll have the next four finished pages in a week or less. February has been exceedingly rough... though it seems like many of the people I watch had an unusually productive month. Yay you guys!!!

I'm hoping to not work as many extra hours anymore... I need to learn how to take a lunch break without feeling guilty. I also need to learn how to leave after working 8 hours. But it's just so hard... Yet it's draining and bad for my personal goals, so I really need to stop.

I remember being in college, having the instructors talk about how busy art directors are. Now that I kind of am one, I totally see what they mean.

Okay, so this post isn't about scrapple; I just like to take any opportunity I can to talk about creepy meats. Nooo, this post is actually about scraps! I like the new DA layout, but the big drawback to it is that scraps are now even more inaccessible and forgotten. And I like looking at people's scraps, so I think it's a travesty!

So where am I going with this? Let's see who guessed it... Just a reminder -- I'm posting the pencil sketches for the first scenes of Unholy in my scraps section! I may move the pencils offsite from scene 3 onward. If I do, I'll be sure to post a link. But either way, I plan for my next post to be finished pages!

1/5 update -- Thank you to those of you who game me your feedback! Since there are some people who would like to see the pencils, for now I'll be posting them in my scraps. I'll be uploading the first few pages today.

P.S. =emla gave me a DA subscription. ;_; (crying because she's too nice!) Thank you again, dude!

P.P.S. Does anyone else remember wax lips? My sister got me some for Christmas. It brought back such memories, of back when I had big lips. (er, actually of back when I was a kid and we got wax lips a couple times...) I'm weird; I really like wax gum. But if I chew it for too long, my nose starts to itch...

/end important journal entry

---

So I abruptly went and took down my old Unholy pages... Not only do they make me twitch, but I've started work on the new version which involves a slightly modified (and in many places, completely redone) script. So I'm hoping that people don't remember too much of what the text said in my previous version!

So, the question... Would anyone want to see the roughs for my new pages? I'm thinking of posting the pencil drawings somewhere, but I'm not sure where. It'll either be in my DA scraps or one of my art blogs, or nowhere if people aren't interested.

I'd put up a poll, but I don't have a subscription. But I'd very much appreciate it if you guys would let me know your opinion!

In the time since I've started working at my new job, it seems like I've been sucked into some sort of weird void. But now that I'm approaching my one year anniversary (January 2), I think it's time I try to climb back out. I have two more illustrations that I plan to finish in December. If I'm super-dedicated, I may even have one done this weekend.

In January, I'm resuming work on Unholy. I mean full-scale, heavy-duty work. I'm amazingly anal retentive, and given the latitude, I'd spend all eternity doing research and prep work. (I've already spent the past several months doing that... reading lots of books and doing character/environment designs.) So now I'm super excited to actually start drawing again!

And my second goal/resolution for Unholy: no redo's. I tend to be very easily discouraged and don't usually look fondly back at my old artwork, so I'm always tempted to do stuff over and over again. To be honest, this is my third time starting over on Unholy. So from now on, no more! We shall only move forward!

Thank you very much to those of you who have patiently watched me all this time and commented on or faved my piddly little drawings. I've mentioned being discouraged easily -- hence the long silences and me avoiding DA for extended periods. It's very nice to know that there are some people who have been willing to put up with it, and I will try my best to be less frustrating in the future! ^_^

My prints account expires on September 29 -- exactly one month from today -- and I don't plan to renew it or switch to a free account. So if anyone wants any prints, be sure to get them before then! It seems that by letting my account expire, I'll be sacrificing the money I made in sales, because it's not enough to get a check or to renew my account. Oh well.

In other news... work has been insanely busy as usual. I don't have much time to do personal work anymore, which is very sad. So I've had to be picky about what I work on, and I am continuing work on Unholy. It was a pretty big blow when my hard drive crashed and I lost a huge chunk of pages from the story, but it made me decide that if I'm gonna have to redraw stuff, I might as well redraw it way better. So I've gone back to the drawing board, so to speak, and I'm giving the story a complete overhaul. New character and environmental designs, etc. Starting with the main characters, which I'm uploading today.

I won't post pages until I have a good enough amount that I won't leave people hanging in the middle of the story again. So it may be awhile. Thanks for bearing with me!