Secondlina's Panels

I bring to you... Designs I did for the Namesake ads! Aw yeah. I'm very happy with the coloring in these. I also went for fanservice a little bit. In the characters chosen and scenes depicted. Because yeah, this is about attracting people. Once they get to the site, I get to dazzle them with the actual comic. I just need to get them there...

I can't wait for school to start again before I murder a parent or two. We are starting to have serious "parents who don't give a fuck" problems at our stores. Parents come in, sit down, read a magazine for two hours, letting the kids run free. And often wrecking havoc. And they usually are pretty indifferent when we try to get them to do something about it. I never get angry at the kids. They are kids. They will run around when bored. I get angry at the parents. how hard is it to buy the damn 2$ mag and go read at the park about a block away while the kids enjoy that little thing I like to call nature? 

Just... so many indifferent parents letting loose kids who clearly need to be playing outside. They have so much energy. It's like it never gets released. It's pretty dangerous in the store. We almost got a toddler waked by a door because her mother let her crawl on the floor in front of it. 

I understand that parents need a break, but a public store is not where they should be having it, especially when their children are 6 and younger. 

If I get arrested in the next week, let them know the murder was just.

- Isa

Unpleasant surprise this morning : there was some dudes fixing the apartment's outer wall. Right outside my bedroom window. Where I sleep. With very little clothing. I had to develop a ninja strategy to roll in a blanket and close the drapes without flashing anyone. It worked. But yeah. That was unpleasant. 

In other news, still reading Inuyasha. I was kinda surprised at first. The first couple of books are actually quite good. The story is well paced, the characters are fun. The stakes are high. But now I just entered the part where the series got really popular and the artist is stretchignt he crap out of it. Aka, the boring part of Inuyasha. Aka, book 18. Aka, that part where the same stuff happens over and over. Sesshoumarou whines. Kikkyo plots. Naraku is more slippery then a toad covered in Vaseline. Inuyasha learns that his sword has superpowers by doing the most contrived stuff ever.Yep. I'm hoping things get exciting soon again. The only really interesting stuff at this point is Kagome and her identity crisis.

Bring the plot back, books. C'mon. 

I'm also a bit disappointed by the French translation that is honestly... weird. A lot of the sentences don't make sense, and all of the honorific were translated literally. Meaning that you see stuff like Kagome calling Sango "little sango" or "cute sango" all the time. I get the feeling they just got someone to translate, but then they took it as is. Usually, you need someone to translate, and then someone to adapt. 

Anywho...

I kinda wish I could be somewhere warm and sunny right now. The weather here can't decide if it's spring or not.



- Isa

Back from two days of convention. Oh god, it was kinda horrible. I'm not going to go into details right now, but I worked harder at this con then any other con before. And I had some pretty difficult cons before this! Long hours, alone for five tables for a good while, no change, etc, etc. It was. Yurk. Not as well organized as it could have been. The con itself was pretty fun, I got a couple of comics signed. But oh god, my legs. My brain. My eardrums. It all hurts. Ark. But the artists were friendly, and the people too, so it balances out.

Tomorrow, I work again, but only at the bookstore and on website stuff, so it's going to be quiet. And then, in the evening, i,m going to go see the Lion King with a friend. I promise i'll answer your comments tomorrow. But for today my brain is just going FDGDFGRGTRHGBGN CAN'T COMPUTE.

Also, apparently, it only takes the command of three people (asatira, Lily and Juba) to make me draw something. I was asked for a color drawing of Wendy.

So, no, it’s not ethnic River Song, though the resemblance is there. This is Wendy, one of the main cast of my webcomic Namesake. Wendy is the Namesake linked to the world of Neverland. She is part of Calliope, the organization that takes care of Namesakes like her, in a kick-ass team with Alice and Jack. Wendy can fly, has two daggers and a gun and she is the proud wearer of the seven league boots. She’s basically a little army on her own. Despite how much evil jerk she can destroy, she remains the heart of the team and the team mom. 

I love her.

In other news, check out this video kids. This man in a piano prodigy who composes emotional pieces on the fly at 16 with no formal training. He is some kind of genius. A Pollock of music. :D

I love him too.

And a vampire I drew to conclude things. I also love vampires. This is still for the kid's clothing thing.



Now, for a shower and bed. I feel like the con was a bit of a bath of B.O. I need to wash it off. It was pretty hot in the building so everyone suffered from it.

- Isa

 All my bags are ready, I have clothing, con stuff, snacks, water, and ipad and a sketchbook. HERE I COME TORONTOOOOOO.

In other news, I started watching Doctor Who. Many of my friends are fans, and have been claiming this is amazing, so I figured I would give it a go. It helps too that itunes was selling the seaons for 12$ a piece online. :D I'm starting on series 1. I kinda watched a few random episodes, see if I like it. So far, I think the most recent team, the one from series 5, will be my favorite. I just love fun-loving characters like them. So here's art of the tardis team. Expect more, better art when I actually understand the story more!



Also, i,m currently cooking supper. first corn on the cob of the season heck yeah. And fries. Getting corn cobs ready reminded me of a story that I decided to tell Link. He laughed a lot following said story. Why? Here's why :

I went to a semi-professional corn-on-the-cob-and-hot-dog event. Now, bear in mind that i'm French, and as such, I forget English words sometimes. At the bar-b-q event, I wanted a cob, but could not recall the name. So I asked for a "corn-penis". Then there was a lot of silence. I then went "Huh.... I.... Huh..... I love corn? But not penises. Wait. Well, maybe."

*more silence*

*Isa exit left*

Bringing the socially awkward bar up a notch for fun. And you guys wonder why I worry about this weekend. *laughs*

Anywho. See you guys in a few.

-Isa 

This was inspired by something I saw on Tumblr. I always sing while I clean (much like a Disney princess, but I fear the singing doesn't actually call minions animal friends to me). I usually stop as soon as someone walks in. Thought this lead to a few dumb moments in my life. Like, yes, if you sing Elvis while washing an open window, the people on the other side can totally hear you. Oh well.

My life just would not be the same without the dorky moments.

Can anybody name all the songs :P?

- Isa

 Long story short, I got real sick for the past 4 days. Fever and all. That was accompanied by various levels of an identity crisis about my job, my comics, what I wanted to do with my life, my friends, etc. Because, apparently, i,m a suffering artist or something. Now i'm pretty over the sickness and the woobiness and I came up with a few ideas. The main idea is, I really need to make a list of goals and tasks. Keep myself organized. I think have a big board with that will make me feel good. Or maybe a journal?

I need some change on the artsy, life and job front. Time to get things moving. And making a list and checking it twice is a good start.

I don't have an ideal pocket journal. I used to always have a journal on me. I sorta have one now, but it's not perfect and I guess that discourages me to use it? My favorite type of journal was those half-notebook, half-agenda things. But I can't find one ANYWHERE. And I looked!  Isa wants her perfect journal.

I don't want much from life, but honestly, I love having the perfect bag, journal and pencil case. I change bags often since what is the perfect bookbag often changes according to my needs. I still have the perfect pencil case. It's good to have these things for me. It makes me feel more complete.

I had a friend that used to tell me that a person needs 5 things in life to be happy. A good job, a good project, a good love/social life, a good house and good gear. What qualifies as "good" is relative to people, but more and more, I think she's right about this. My "project" (comics) have always been on the fly a lot and disorganization and lack of a long-term plan is slowly killing me. The job, I often selected to just generate rent. I'm starting to notice that dissatisfaction there really affects the rest more and more.

Bottom life is, I need a plan and I need these five circles to be more balanced. I've always though that motivation and trying things once in a while would eventually get me where I want to go, but the more I speak to artsy gals, the more I think motivation is not enough. I really need to plan more starting now. I need personal goals and deadlines more then the general "comic artist eventually" idea.

Deadlines like "next year, two books published" and "go to these cons" and stuff.

I think this sickness allowed me to clean my body a bit and clean my soul. I felt incredibly stressed for the past few weeks and I finally feel like someone yanked my heart out of my chest and put a new one in to clean my blood.

Or something.

Heck, i'm babbling.

Lately i've been working on con posters. I'm doing an activity at a local con a friend of mine is organizing, so i'm gonna throw in some Namesake advertizement, because why the hell not? :D I really love the mood in this one. I wanted to do one with just Emma and Elaine and one with all the characters. Basically one showing off the cast and the other showing off a mood. 

And of course, TEXTURES.



S'all for now.

- Isa

 

Oh, yeah, I actually woke up this morning just like that. It was a really cool dream and it stopped literally in mid-sentence. I don't know if the character was going to tell me I smelled, or that he loved me, or the meaning of life,  but it sure bugged me all day. 

F*ck you, brain. 

You too alarm.

You guys are working together, aren't you?

Well, maybe tonight i'll get the sequel.

- Isa

Now, i'm the type of person that has a very specific type of concentration abilities. Much as if it was a pokemon, i'll call it a "rock" type, in the sense that my ability to concentrate is kinda like a giant boulder blocking the road. Try to move it, it remains whole. Chisel away at it and it crumbles. The general point of this metaphor is that "big" stressful events don't seem to really get to me. Prior to major exams during university I kinda just shrugged, rolled over and took a nap. However, a large amount of small annoyances will make it impossible for me to concentrate and potentially drive me insane.

Yesterday was a big pile of small annoyances.

First off, getting to work. The subway kept having elongated stops because some twat though it would be hilarious to play with the emergency stop. Annoyance 1. This was followed by a longer walk then I had hoped, in deep slush where I got splashed by cars a lot. Annoyance 2. Get into work. Get annoyed by specific hated coworker for being wet. Annoyance 3. Get criticized for wearing the same clothing as yesterday despite the fact that said coworker is aware that all my clothing is in bags due to exterminators poisoning my apartment during the day. Annoyance 4. Notice and scratch several bedbug bites. Annoyance 5. Then big burly men come in and start building walls in the office. Yes. The management wishes to install more walls, to compress fun and sound no doubt, and the construction dudes absolutely have to do it during the day while we are trying to work. So the whole day was punctuated by the sound of hammers, saws, and other loud construction sounds that basically made it impossible to even answer the phone or talk to each other. This is annoyance 6 to 23.

To boot, for some reason, yesterday's clients seem to have eaten annoyance for breakfast and had this compelling need to spew it all in emails all day because yesterday goes on record for the largest amount of stupid questions I ever received in an angry, stupid tone. Annoyance 23 to 100. I eventually left early, since there was nothing I really could do to help these clients and the jumper saw was in use dangerously close to my desk. On the way home, ladidah, guess what, the subway is still on break. MORE WALKING YAY. I get home and splashed and try to go buy food and hopefully get change for laundry. I got some nice food at the grocery store, but getting the cashier to give me my change (5$) in quarters was like asking a monkey to preform open heart surgery. I asked 10 times and seeing that the line of clients was getting longer and that the cashier's response was "But.... buuutttt.....I can give you only 5$...." to every way I formulated the sentence I just gave up and went home.

There, huzzah, the apartment spells like poison! This is actually the good news of the day. It means Bedbugs are on the run. I opened all the windows so that I would be able to breathe and proceeded to wear my coat indoors. Link was smarter then me and had left for D&D for the night. I also tried to wash our bedsheets and all so we could sleep in the bed tonight. Some chick downstairs decided she was the queen of the washer-dryer and made it very hard for me to complete laundry (she kept pulling out my stuff to put hers). I was finally able to close the windows and make the bed.

This morning, I seem to still have bedbug bites, but since these bites are suppose to flare up 24-48h after you receive them, i'm not going to read too much into it.

And there you have it, my craptastic day. I probably should have drawn a comic about it, but by the time all these little annoyances piled on, I had the thinking ability of a drunk hummingbird and didn't really want to sit still and draw. Plus I think re-drawing kinda falls under the category of re-living it. And I don't want that.

I really should start drawing some joke comics again. Haven't put one up in a while.

Oh and in case you're all wondering, the construction goes on until Friday. Woo.

I did doodle. I doodled this :





- Isa

To resume the bedbug issue : my friend Fauve hooked me up with a website saying that according to Montréal law, extermination of certain pests where to be organized and paid by the landlord himself, the list of pests included bed bugs. So despite what them concierge told me, I contacted my landlord directly and voilà, my apartment is going to be hosting an extermination team on Friday. And I don't have to pay for it.

Before the exterminators show up, me and Link basically have to clean EVERYTHING in the apartment and wash everything and anything that may be composed of fabric, even in the rooms that are not the bedroom. So, my apartment is gradually becoming cleaner then it's ever been, ever. Not that i'm usually messy, but DANG, THIS IS REALLY ANAL CLEANING.

I had to toss out a few things, pillows and Megatron, the giant carnival tiger plushy. I'm a little sad about that.

So, I guess I was lucky in my bad luck. Still, we have so much work ahead of us (about 70 loads of laundry. I kid you not).

Art of the day! This one is for putri-nih. It's her own original characters from a comic called "Changeling". I really like her characters because the one with the floaty scarf? That's a kid that is part-fairy, based on the "Tennin" legend.



Tennin can fly thanks to their colored or feathered kimonos, called hagoromo ("dress of feathers"), also represented by something I like to designate as "Floaty wavy scarf of awesome". In some legends, tennin are unable to fly without these kimonos (and thus cannot return to heaven). In a Noh play called Hagoromo, tennyo come to the earth and take off their hagoromo. A fisherman spies them and hides their clothes in order to force one to marry him. After some years he tells his wife what he did, and she finds her clothes and returns to heaven.

Yes, this is similar to the story of the Muses in Greek legend. And the story of the swan maidens in western fairy tales. And it was used in the anime "Ayashi no Ceres". It's also really awesome.

- Isa

 @#%$!@#$%$#TGEWRFDSAGFSDVCXFVDFAGFGD WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DAMMIT.

We have bed bugs. 

GREAT.

No offence to anyone, but until I get a hold of an exterminator (read - first thing on Monday morning) and that my house is disinfected, i'm not inviting anyone to my house or visiting anyone. I don't want to spread this by accident. So i'm going to be either very antisocial, or meet people in restaurants and in downtown. I love my friends. I don't want to give them a lousy infestation. 

Argh. And the worse part, I was planning on visiting friends this week. I'm suppose to meet people at a restaurant on Saturday. Since it's a public place, I won't have to cancel that. Whew. I'm glad.

Here's a cutesy drawing. It makes me feel better.