Page 88 is up in all it's colorfulness for everyone to enjoy :3
Anyone have any thoughts? I know it took frimping forever to get through it, but does anyone have anything they wanna say/ask/know?

And on a somewhat unrelated note, classes start tomorrow omFGAJASWOIGHABBALAHHABBLAHA...

Life Spying Meme
Ask me to take pictures of any aspect of my life that you're interested in/curious about -- it can be anything from my favorite shirt to my dvds to my siblings roommates. Leave your requests as a comment to this entry, I'll snap the pictures and post them in the next post.

Took yesterday off to do schooly stuff.
And get fed by Aubryx. They're awesome people. I <3 them from the depths of mah tummeh, and that's love.

More Georgia-Georgia progress!

Hello, comic-thoughts/sketchblog. I think I'll use you today ^.^

So, yesterday I accomplished something. I finished the final page of chapter 2! Woohoo! It only took me...three...years...oh shush. The final page count was 62 pages--which is still pretty abysmal, but c'mon. Give me SOME credit. The next chapter SHOULD be done by the end of the year.
SHOULD. SHOULD.

COME ON PEOPLE THIS IS ME. SHOULD.

Unfortunately, chapter 2 is by NO MEANS done. I went back through the archives to make the final notes on all those little twitches I've been meaning to fix...there's two pages worth.

Some of those are pretty major--like the double spread on pages 40 and 41...I need to go back and tone that. *cry* Most of it's minor things, like "add smoke trail to steve and geo's cigs on page 61" or "change Roy's drunk-font on page 46". Little things...on probably about 40 pages DX

Oh well; I'll build my buffer up a bit more and tackle only a page or three of fixes a week.

Aaaaannnyways...here's the sketchy part of today's blog.

( Georgia-Georgia pin-up wallpaper! )

This may be my favorite face I have ever drawn, in and out of the comic. :3

Remember when I used to use this sketch blog? And would, you know, let you guys know about comic updates? I'm thinking I'm going to start doing that again.

Page 86 just went up. Read, enjoy, and drop me a comment on your thoughts.

Commissions are open.

I'll probably post something here in the next few days.
Probably.
if i remember...

Carry on.

Still without intarwebs at the apartment; currently writing this at my school while I dink around waiting for my fafsa to get verified. Been working on the backlog as well as a commission and some original stuff. This whole no-intarwebs thing is killing me. Especially since, as of writing this, I'm still unemployed.

But that SHOULD change tomorrow afternoon.
Until then, keep your fingers crossed for me :)

Posted early because my friends are throwing me a going-away party tonight, and I'll be too drunk tonight, and too hungover tomorrow, to remember and/or care. I plan on curling up in a laundry room tomorrow and dying.

Anyways, as I've said before, I'm moving. In seven friggin' days. I have to be completely packed by Thursday afternoon. Oh god. But yeah. Comic's going on hiatus until I'm moved in (I swear to god, I'mma actually unpack evrehthing for once) and employed. Because I don't make money off the comic. Maybe in August if I get a table at Kumoricon I can say otherwise, but yeah. Right now? I makes nothing. Which means the job hunt's got priority *coughandpaintingmyroomcough*

SO. I'll be rebuilding my buffer during April, but aside from sketches and previews of chapter 3, you won't be getting much from me. If anyone's willing, guest comics and fanart will much loved. Depending on how the next few weeks go, I may or may not bump updates to twice a week for a while when I get back.

Anyways, watch this space for news and for those little teasers I mentioned, and if anyone's got the time or the drive, I'll happily accept guest comics ^.^

Wish me luck with the packing darlin's.

Firstly: when I can get my computer to remember and understand the fact that it has 4 gigs of RAM, and after restarting it with nothing but trillian and photoshop open, using the paintbucket ONCE does not render it RAM'ed out (I can't even SAVE *cry*), the page will be up. I am a VERY unhappy viking about this. Trust me.

SECONDLY! I'm moving! In 10 days. To an apartment up 'round portland that the mistress and the knight found. I must SHARE the awesomeness of this apartment:

3 bedrooms, 1.5 bath (the half bath is in the master bedroom and I pulled the litterbox trump card to get it ^.^), huge living room, porch, private 2nd floor entrance, access to the complex pool, and a maximum 2 block walk to the transit center.

On top of that, we'll have brand new:
-countertops
-carpet
-heating
-electrics
-water
-appliances! (hooray stove NO ONE ELSE HAS FUCKED WITH XD--going into baking I COULD NOT ask for more *happy dance*)
-doors

The only thing that can make this better? Can we paint the walls?
YES, BIATCH, WE CAN XD !!! They actually provide the paint and supplies free of charge at move out to paint the walls back ^.^

I will have to post pictures of this apartment when I get up there on the 4th, and prolly afterwards when I'm unpacked (and my room's painted!). I know I always say that and I haven't since I lived in the dorms...but I mean it this time, dammit. I mean, I'mma be unemployed for a few weeks with an apartment I can PAINT and no intarwebs. And my camera.

Of course, after learning I have an address again and won't be homeless...now I'm sick. I can't say it's my sinuses anymore. Maybe this means I won't be sick on the 3rd when we're packing the truck?

.
.
.

Oh god, I move in 10 days and I have so much packing to do yet DX

Second update of the year!
Sadly, this is a record >.<

Page!
Y'all know the drill :3

PS! Contests! Remembers them!

So last week I was still sick. Among many various other reasons. So there wasn't a page.
But there will be one tomorrow. (Today?...late today.)

It'd be done already, but I had to prove that the cake wasn't a lie.

Doodles and bonus comic tomorrow too :3

Okay...crisis averted and page posted up at the site.

March 9th marks the 4th aniversary of MagNorth going live, and despite the low page count, 4 years is the longest amount of time I've ever invested into a project without getting bored and wandering off (despite popular belief, I just get busy with that whole "life" thing rather than lazy). So, to commemorate, I'm throwing a kind of 'birthday bash' around here.

The first contest is fanart. Anyone who sends in fanart will be entered to win the original line art and a full color print of a long-over-due illustration of something secret :3 All I can say about it, is that it has stolen way too many hours of my life. Everyone who participates will receive a desktop wallpaper of the same illustration for their efforts. Judging will be done by myself and a few friends who don't know they've been voluntold yet. Submissions are due March 6th.

The second contest is a simple character poll. Simply email me with the name of your favorite character (runbyhugging@DELETE_THIS_BITgmail.com). Feel free to babble about said character of your choosing. The character with the most votes will be featured in a pinup or wallpaper. As added incentive, the reader who sends me the most awesome reason why X should win, gets a little somethin' somethin' as well, regardless of if that character wins. Any character you've seen in the comic is up for grabs (IE, anyone voting "Deb" before she appears in page 78 forfeit's their vote), regardless of if
they even have a name yet--just make sure I can find them in the archive and make sure I know who you're talking about. Because I'm painfully aware the cast page is out of date, you can find a nearly
complete cast list here. You only get one vote, and voting ends on March 7th.

Finally, Gods willing, chapter 2 will be wrapping up in the next 2 months. This means, that in the beginning of April, I'll be running a guest-strip-a-paloza. I'm moving in late May, and while I have a
completed (ie, it's already finished) sidestory to run while that's going on, I don't have enough pages to get me all the way through the packing and unpacking before I can get into chapter 3. So if anyone's
willing to send in a guest strip for the month of April, I'll love you double.

That's about it. I go to bed now, you go read comic :3

....so scared right now. I was right at the end--RIGHT AT THE BLOODY END--of page 76. All I had left was to text and bubble! The whole thing was colored and purtiful!

And...photoshop crashed when I tried to save.

And...I have no idea when the last time I saved was o.o

Shit.
SHIT SHIT SHIT.'




FUCK! GODDAMN FUCKERS !#&@(!!!
jfaz;ha;fasfo;aij;ag;

UGH.
Okay, back to work.

So, I won't be doing Christmas cards this year, even though I REEEEEEEEEAAAAAAALLLLLLY wanted to. I might be able to pull it out of my bum in time for a Christmas day illustration if I bust my ass, but I'd really rather work on pages. I'm only 9 PAGES away from the end of chapter 2 guys, I NEED TO FINISH IT NAOUGH!

Gugh. By the way, a page went up last night. The amount of time that this page sat on my harddrive missing only the text (all 6 bubbles XP) is ludicrous. Depression is a crippling thing, my friends. Depression multiplied by exhaustion is even worse. Depression divided by the square root of awesome friends is more bearable.

I love my friends XD They put up with sooooo much from me, and all I have to do is pay them in cookies ^.^
And hugs. But I'm not entirely sure many of my friends enjoy the random glomps and clingings... ¬.¬

Anyways, the next page should be up sometime around Christmas. I've got all but 3 panels inked. And those three panels will go quickly; I <3 drawing angry people.

...are starting at all your local retail outlets.
I've decided to torture myself even more this year and do Christmas cards again despite not having much free time already.

Anybody want one? If I don't appear at your house on a regular basis, I probably don't remember/know where you live, so leave your real name and address in the comments. They're screened so they're only for me to see :)


ALSO! IF YOU WERE THINKING OF BUYING A COMMISSION AS GIFT FOR ANYONE, YOU NEED TO CONTACT ME BY THANKSGIVING DAY. I WORK TWO RETAIL JOBS. IT'S CHRISTMAS. ANYTHING AFTER THANKSGIVING, I CAN'T PROMISE WILL BE DONE IN TIME TO PRINT AND MAIL.

Roy and Rissa are literally my favorite part about this page (you know, the overly late one? I had layout issues...serious ones. But the inks are finally done!)




What the hell is it with me and this damned flashback and loving my little uber-deformed characters in the background? R&R are all tiny and shit in the posting size of the page, it's ridiculous!

So page 72 is up.
And in color.
Why? Because I randomly channeled my high school pep-band days and drew two of my little crowd-ppl holding sexamaphone-esc shapes setting a third crowd-person-with-a-flute-shaped-stick's hair on fire. Which was always what Steve-Roy and I wanted to do to the flutist who sat in front of us. Even though you can't see it in the scaled down version of the page.....



Yeah. I was totally a band nerd in high school. Concert and pep band in my underclassman years, and jazz band (which was really more swing and big band) for all four. I should note I was and will ALWAYS BE the ONLY 4 year MHS jazz band member. BWAHAHAHAHA.


Also, somewhere in this country is a small backwater mountain town that does indeed have a Turkey Testicle Festival. I don't know where it is, and I have never been to it, but it does exist, and if you want to know where and what it is, track down my kmart and get the co-worker who grew up there to tell you :P


.
.
.

And yes Tim. That censored bubble does indeed belong to your character.
(sketches coming soon)

I don't even want to get into why the page is 2 weeks late. I will though. First, I got a second (and third) job at the Coach House Hallmark store and the Halloween Bootique in the local mall. THEN, I get foiled by an onion ring, rip out a filling, and end up swallowing half a tooth (as well as most of the replacement filling because the attendant wasn't paying attention when they were setting it). Then, I help Tri move (which was all kinds of fun, 'cause I worked 4½ hours at kmart, spent the next 4 hours helping Tri, and then had barely enough time to get to the mall and inhale a cheeseburger in under a minute before fleeing to the Bootique to work there for another 4 hours. On a Friday night. Without a break). Also, the spiders in Tri's boxes found me a delicacy, because I have about 12 spider bites (and innumerable flea bites from his roomies' kitty) up and down my back. That combined with a headcold and conspired to leave me sick and hurking for 2 days--not only did I miss a friend's birfday party, but I had to call in sick to one of my jobs. Which I just don't do.

Among all of this joyousness, I've spent more time on the bus than I have sleeping, thereby away from my computer.

And I got it into my head that page 72 needed to be in color! Why? Why do I have to torment myself with an extra 4 hours of work on a page that shouldn't have taken more than 3?!



It's totally worth it though. This is probably my favorite panel from the page, minus the text, which will go up tomorrow whenever the hells I get home.

Heh. I totally love abusing Steve. You can't see it, but he's knocked out a tooth from whatever scuffle he got into :3 *vindictive author-lady loves her Steviekins*

Page 69 has been posted. I'd like to say this page is contrary and wholesome, but there's still some smecks in there, so I guess I fail XP

Anyways, you know the drill. Read, enjoy, review. I love hearing from people :3

I don't know how, but I pulled a muscle in my sleep last night.
A very angry one. From somewhere near the base of my skull on the right side of my neck, down my neck, the back of my shoulder, and all the way down to my elbow.

i yam upsetified over this.

That and, ya know, waking up at two in the morning crying in pain and unable to find a comfortable place on my pillow for my head.

ANYWAYS!
So during the hiatus I took in July, I got a LOT done. Got the entire chapter scripted, most of the pages for it laid out, and even had a schedule that I couldn't fail at in order to get to chapter 3 before New Years and still take a break. I had a few pages of backlog as well.

Weeeeell...due to my getting sick RIGHT before con, getting worked twice as much as usual the week before as well (which I'm honestly not complaining about; t'was nice to have money to come home to so I could, ya know, eat), and my demands that my Lavi cosplay come with the perfect hammer (and yes, I made a damn sexy hammer. Full tang. Carried on my shoulder with my hands in my pockets all weekend, it was great), my buffer kinda got eated.

Thus Run missed 2 updates.

Which sucks balls, but it kinda lead to a revelation that I probably should have had a long time ago.

The most productive chunk of time, when it came to drawing and inking pages, was the beginning of chapter two, and the middle chunk -- right after the double spread when the get to the party. I may not have always updated right on time, but I spent a lot of time perfecting things and forcing myself to look at anatomy and backgrounds. I was also in classes at this time, so that I got as much done as I did was frickin amazing.

And while ripping signs at work last Saturday, it dawned on me that the reason for this, was that on both occasions I had specific places where I would work on pages, that weren't anywhere near a computer or home. And I stood there, in a kind of zen-meditative state, ripping ad signs for this week's ad, and realized that if I took my pencils with me to a locale that wasn't my apartment, that I'd probably be able to get right back on track for the chapter.

This came with the realization that there's a coffee shop not even a block from my apartment.

So Sunday morning, I dragged my ass out of bed, got dressed, grabbed my working bag, and schlepped down to aforementioned coffee shop and spent two to two and a half hours working on pencils. Averaged about a page an hour, with time in there for eating a bagel and being a perfectionist.

So that's this week's and next week's pencils done.
Actually, with the exception of about an hour's worth of work, this week's page is almost entirely done--inks and flats and backgrounds got done yesterday before I went to work. It will be done tonight before I get to dinner. (I bribe myself with yoohoo from across the street ^.^) I'll probably be starting next week's page, unless this frickin' muscle keeps hurting like this.

Goddammit, why'd it have to be my dominant/drawing hand? GAGH!


And I swear to god, eventually I'll do a con report. Probably between pages tonight; or at least download the photos tonight.... >.>