The Doctor and I

Okay, so this isn't the epic blog-dump I had intended, which would have covered what I've been up to in these last nine (!) months. That post is coming... eventually.

Instead, this is the "short" version - mainly a post about knitting, crocheting, and crafting, prompted in part by the stream of new visitors visiting here via pixelatedmushroom. (Hello new visitors!)

It wasn't long after I started the #dailysketch project that I realized I'd overlooked a very important downside to my plan - coming up with new sketch ideas is hard. Not that the project was supposed to be easy, but spending more time each day trying to think up what to draw than actually drawing... that just wasn't going to work.

As an alternative, I decided to commit myself to one massive long-term project that (1) I could work on a little each day, (2) would end with tangible results and (3) most importantly, not require a lot of thinking. This was supposed to be therapeutic, gorramit!

The ideal project was obvious: A 12-foot Doctor Who Scarf. And after four months exactly, knitting ten minutes to an hour every day, it was complete!

Easy peasy.
The real question is what to do with it now that it's done!

Following completion of this project, it was pretty clear I was now hooked on crafting. I'd gotten so into the habit of making something each night that it felt weird not having something to work on. Furthermore, after four months of the garter stitch, back-and-forth, back-and-forth...I felt ready for a challenge!

Browsing Etsy and the CraftyTARDIS Livejournal Group for ideas, I stumbled upon pixelatedmushroom's fantastic10th Doctor Plushie pattern. Being very much a fan of the 10th Doctor and finding the pictures of the finished product adorable, I decided to make my first foray into the world of crocheting.

Over the summer, I taught myself the basic stitches (via the magic of YouTube), fought through the hand cramps, leveled up by learning some basic amigurumi techniques and completed my first crochet project. 

I'd say it came out pretty darned well:

The Oncoming Storm

The Doctor loves his TARDIS

Ready for Adventure!

Working on these projects have been great experiences and I've not only learned new crafting skills but the quiet repetitive nature of the work has given me time and space (heh!) to think and draw analogies to process struggles in my "real" work. Therapy indeed!

Moving forward, I know I'm going to continue crafting (I've already started another, non-Who scarf and have been "commissioned" to do various projects by family and friends), and I'll be documenting the process here, on Twitter, and on my Ravelry account. A thought that lingers, however, is whether this is really in the same spirit that prompted the #dailysketch or if it's something else altogether.

A month or so ago, I posed to my hive mind on Twitter the question: "Is crafting the same as making art?" and received no real response. So far, I am certain they're very closely connected, but I have not yet decided if they're quite the same...or if that even matters.

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[P.S. To anyone who is familiar with my pet peeve about object-pronouns and is surprised by this post's title... Blame Barrowman]

#dailysketch: Remembering to Make Art

The Internet is awesome.

I learn something new from it every day. I encounter new artists, authors, books, shows, media, movies, music... and seeing what other people are writing, making, and thinking gets me excited to learn and try things out for myself.

On New Year's Eve, Neil Gaiman posted a beautifully stated set of wishes on his blog, which included the following:

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books... don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself."

It got me thinking. How often do I "forget" to make art? How often does my impulse to draw, write, photograph, or sculpt get pushed aside and lost because I'm distracted or overwhelmed or simply too busy with everything else I have to do?

I realized that if I wanted to do creative things, I needed to force it into my schedule -- make a "want-to" into a "have-to". This is a model I'd seen work for people before, my favorite example being Jonathan Coulton's "Thing a Week" project, and he's even written about how forcing himself to work made the music happen...and how the desperate frenzy to make-it-happen had a role in sparking inspiration.

Around this time last year, Cory Doctorow noted the importance of maintaining a routine in an article that explained how he manages to write as much as he does, despite all the distractions. Since reading the article, the part that has stuck with me the most was his comment that "It's not plausible or desirable to try to get the world to go away for hours at a time, but it's entirely possible to make it all shut up for 20 minutes." I've since learned that this is absolutely true. Using this approach has helped me power through things I've had to do for work and school... why not apply it to doing something I want do do?

As a result, #dailysketch was born.

The goal is simple: set aside (at least) 10 minutes every day to sketch, doodle, or draw something, anything. It doesn't have to be good, but it has to happen.

It's easy enough to find 10 minutes of time each day that would be wasted otherwise. And anything I draw, even if it's terrible, only serves to hone my abilities. Chuck Jones used to tell his students, "All of you have one hundred thousand bad drawings in you. The sooner you get rid of them, the better it will be for everyone." If nothing else, this would help me get rid of my hundred thousand bad drawings.

Beyond this, #dailysketch is about getting things onto the page. It's too easy to avoid doing things out of fear that they won't come out right. In response, I've decided to steal Wil Wheaton's mantra:"It's okay to suck. Don't be afraid to suck. It's easier to fix a lame scene than fill up a blank page."

So that's it. 10 minutes, every day (or as close to every day as possible): The good, the bad, and the downright awful.

One week in and I think it's going well.

On Sunday, as a warm up, I did practice sketches using poses from a Doctor Who magazine.



On Monday, I drew a mad scientist riding a dinosaur down the street. The mad scientists would turn out to become a recurring theme, partially because they're fun and they amuse me, and partially because they're surprisingly easy to draw.



Tuesday brought a mad scientist girl greeting her robot minions. Note that all the robots are copies of "Eh" from the Robots of the Company prologue I illustrated. He's become my default for whenever I need to draw a robot.



Wednesday was a tribute to the domestic applications of mad science. I especially like the jar of olives/eyeballs in the background.



Thursday, I decided to expand my theme to superheroes, and wound up with a silly piece about Superman's inability to dress appropriately for a night out on the town. Not one of my better ones in concept or execution, I'll admit...



On Friday, I revisited the main character from "Bottom of the Barrel," who has always been my go-to character whenever I'm not sure what else to draw. Hopefully the use of two default characters in one piece aren't a sign of early fatigue!



And on Saturday, I attempted a 3-panel piece. Again, not one of my better efforts, but I think the first two panels came out much better than they had any right to be.




So, that's it so far.

With the new semester starting up in a few days, I can only hope that I'll be able to continue at this pace. But even if I don't, that's okay too.

So long this continues on a fairly regular basis, I'll be happy. Perhaps I'll change the parameters to once a week. Maybe I'll expand it to include writing, photos, or other projects... The rules don't really matter because at least I'll have remembered to make some art.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions, and requests are all welcome!

Bots, Books, and Beginnings

For a while there were rumblings and rumors that DRE had notions of turning Robots of the Company into a book – a real book, a proper novel, even, with dialogue and descriptions and subplots and other such booky features. I’m not entirely sure where this idea originated but somehow the project wound up in the hands of my friend and frequent collaborator, Victor Alpha.

Victor is an incredibly talented writer who amazingly manages to juggle writing duties on a number of projects and audio series, including the wonderfully odd and silly Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes. Plus, I am led to believe he is actually James Bond when he is not writing a half-dozen scripts at the demand of his Whiteboard Taskmaster or catering to the imperious whims of his cat.

I could not and cannot think of anyone better suited to writing the ROTC novel.

Much of the book would be written in the madness that was NaNoWriMo of 2007 and I would not get to see it until it was completed. However, I jumped at the chance for a sneak preview when I learned that Victor had already completed a prologue for the novel, a short standalone story written to set the tone.

Reading this prologue, I was utterly charmed by the tale of the lonely little robot and was quickly inspired to do some scribbly sketches to accompany the text.

Before I knew it, I was illustrating the whole prologue. It was just too much fun adding extra layers of absurdity!

I’m not ashamed to admit that I particularly enjoyed drawing the scene below. I mean, how often does one get to draw a robot talking to a plus-sized space-suited social worker, surrounded by a sky of flames?

Not nearly often enough, I say.

I especially like the pearls.

One day, I hope that this prologue and/or the full novel actually gets published.

Until then, I am perfectly happy to keep doing goofy drawings to go along with the work of a writer who always manages to make me laugh.

Thanks for the inspiration, Victor!

On Radio and Robots

It would appear that my goal of updating this blog on a weekly basis was perhaps a bit overambitious.

Life-related craziness and technological fickleness seem to conspire against timely blogging. These last few weeks have been particularly marked by the demise of my main home computer – the machine on which I created and stored most of my projects from the last five years. Thankfully most if not all of my work has been backed up. However, thanks to the inexplicable way my computer area was set up, this now means that my scanner is inextricably hooked up to a large metal doorstop and will be inaccessible for the indeterminate future.

So, until things are back up and running, it looks like posts will have to be based on whatever I have saved to my laptop.

I suppose for now that means robots. People like robots, right?

Sometime around 2004-2005, I joined an online audio drama group called Dream Realm Enterprises. The flagship series for the group was a strange and silly science-fiction comedy program called Robotz of the Company, which was broadcast online and on a few independently-run radio stations in the U.S. and Canada. In the early days of the series (i.e. when I had more time), I wore many hats in the production process, acting as script editor and casting consultant, as well as occasionally penning an episode or voicing a character.

As the series wrapped up its second season, it seemed like it might be helpful for the writers and producers to have a shared mental image of what the different characters were like. Based on what I imagined from the performances, scripts, production notes, and chats with the production staff, I worked up some concept sketches for characters in the show (all robots) and ideas for other bots which might one day exist in the series’ universe.

These sketches include several miscellaneous designs, as well as ideas for featured characters and series regulars such as Boffin the cockney engineer, Maxi the walking, talking button of unknown purpose, Captain Jammer, and Shinwipe, the administrative bot.

In truth, no one ever asked for these drawings. I just wanted an excuse to doodle the characters.

Does it count as fan art if it’s based on a project you’re involved with?

More on these bots in future entries…