status: my brain needs more ram >.<

[meeks]

First, many thanks to the_vulture for sending me another tip! Teddy will be getting more work and a couple more detail shots. Would anyone mind if I capped the number of details at six? It occurs to me that 15 might be a little excessive, and I could always post higher rez versions of any finished art.

Second...I've really been neglecting these status posts, haven't I? I've had a lot to do this week, and I've been suffering from the kind of insomnia where my brain refuses to shut down, but I'm too tired to use the extra waking hours productively. The sudden change of Vancouver moving back into the rainy season isn't helping much either. On the plus side, I finally found time to watch the second Kuroshitsuji musical. XD I liked it better than the first one, mostly because Yuuya Matsushita's singing voice has improved a lot since then. He was able to make it match the speaking voice he used instead of making Sebastian sound like something out of a teenage boy band (which is scary in its own way, but not quite right for the demon butler ^_^;).

I did manage to post an update to The Henchmen's Hitch on Wednesday, and I got decent start on refining Faerie Wedding yesterday, so I hope to have a new version up tonight or tomorrow.

One of the things I went out to do was get the Salt & Pepper pic reprinted on watercolour paper. A package of the paper I wanted would have cost over $80, so I had it done at Opus. All I can say is "Wow. Proper colour management is SWEET." The monitor and printer I have here are pretty good, but I don't have a Spyder, so even with Epson icc profiles the match isn't exact. This thing looks just like the soft proof they showed me when I brought in the file. And the paper texture (Arches Aquarelle Rag 240gsm, in case anyone's wondering) works beautifully with the visual texture from ArtRage. *squee!*

I'll be getting on a plane on Tuesday to visit my family in Montreal. I'm bringing my laptop and my tablet, but the presence of other humans (real people! O.O) means a lot of non-drawing related activity, and like most aspies, I'm rather prone to anxiety, so I've been worried about not getting things done on time...which is ridiculous because I have no deadlines. I haven't been setting any, thinking that they would make me feel rushed, but instead every new item on my to-do list has provoked a "ZOMG must do this NOW!!!" reaction. I have no idea where that's coming from...after all, I used to be so good at procrastinating! :P I'm going to try setting the unofficial turn-around time to one month from when a new prompt comes in, or a sketch earns a perk. It probably won't make a difference from your POV, but we'll see if it helps stave off the panic attacks. :P

I've been thinking about how to add the story sketches to my main website for several months now, and I think I'm going to have to reorganize the galleries using tags. My hosting service can handle mysql but all of the gallery scripts I've seen that have tags are also bloated with features I don't need. I crop my own thumbnails, don't need to manage multiple users, and I'd prefer to leave the commenting here on DW and LJ. I do need to be able to store the actual image files offsite (on amazon aws) and I'd like to be able to link related pics like details and in-progress versions when displaying an image. Any suggestions? Should I just learn to write it myself?

Okay, that turned into a really long post...I guess it makes up for the three days I missed :P

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Would anyone mind if I capped the number of details at six?<<

That sounds like a reasonable number for people to keep in mind. Most pictures would probably only need three or four, but I could see six out of some that are more complicated. If you ever have a picture that seems like it needs over six, you can always do that as an exception, and remind folks not to expect it.

>>like most aspies, I'm rather prone to anxiety<<

*Zen hugs* I hope you have a good trip.

>>I've been worried about not getting things done on time...which is ridiculous because I have no deadlines. I haven't been setting any, thinking that they would make me feel rushed, but instead every new item on my to-do list has provoked a "ZOMG must do this NOW!!!" reaction. <<

Okay, that's not good.

>>I have no idea where that's coming from...after all, I used to be so good at procrastinating! <<

How much or what kind of audience did you have before? Because now you have several regular prompters who are using your project to illustrate different settings/characters, plus occasional prompters and what's building up to rather a lot of people watching the pictures appear. And some of them are sending you money. Those aspects might contribute to the pressure.

>>I'm going to try setting the unofficial turn-around time to one month from when a new prompt comes in, or a sketch earns a perk. It probably won't make a difference from your POV, but we'll see if it helps stave off the panic attacks.<<

Sure, try that, and if it doesn't help then you can always try something else next. Crowdfunding projects usually take some adjusting, especially near the beginning. You've only been at this a few months and it's already building a lot of momentum.

That reminds me, I've been holding my prompts to about one per month. Should I skip September since someone else prompted for "Restoration" or just pick something different myself? I try to strike a balance between keeping you stocked with prompts vs. not overloading you.

Good luck figuring out how to add Story Sketches to your website. I am clue-free on that topic, but I hope you can make it work somehow, because I'd happily link to it.

Re: Thoughts

[meeks]

Thank you...

I was doing reasonably well at managing the anxiety until a few weeks ago...I suspect some combination of the artificial deadline of my flight and the increase in activity are aggravating my natural difficulty with finding a setting between "URGENT!!" and "meh..maybe someday..." Hmm...I unofficially gave myself four months to do a 40 page picture book last year and that worked out pretty well. I was comfortably turning out 1-3 finished pages per week, and only missed my 'deadline' by a day because I got sick. Last month I did ten Story Sketch posts (among other art) so maybe I should set that as my informal goal...*ponders*

The only thing I ask with regard to prompt frequency is that you wait until a sketch has been posted for one before requesting another. I don't think I have any new ones in the queue for you right now, so it's up to you if you want to submit something. Just keep in mind that while rough sketches will sometimes get bumped up in the queue if I feel like doing some loose sketching, I *may* not get to it before the end of September anyway.

I did some reading while failing to sleep last night, and I think I'll be able to figure out how to re-build the galleries with a database system. I just have to find the time! lol

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>I was doing reasonably well at managing the anxiety until a few weeks ago...I suspect some combination of the artificial deadline of my flight and the increase in activity are aggravating my natural difficulty with finding a setting between "URGENT!!" and "meh..maybe someday..."<<

That makes sense. Things I can handle when well-rested often drive me buggy when I'm tired or frazzled. I only have so many spoons for coping with minor irritations.

>>Last month I did ten Story Sketch posts (among other art) so maybe I should set that as my informal goal...<<

That's pretty awesome -- better than two sketches a week, for things that are scenes in a story rather than random freestyle art.

>>The only thing I ask with regard to prompt frequency is that you wait until a sketch has been posted for one before requesting another. <<

Fair enough. If that's not already in your "call for prompts" guidelines, you should add it. It's helpful information for your regular prompters.

>>I don't think I have any new ones in the queue for you right now, so it's up to you if you want to submit something. Just keep in mind that while rough sketches will sometimes get bumped up in the queue if I feel like doing some loose sketching, I *may* not get to it before the end of September anyway.<<

Okay, great. I have one in mind, and it's not time-sensitive.

>>I did some reading while failing to sleep last night, and I think I'll be able to figure out how to re-build the galleries with a database system.<<

Yay, galleries! I look forward to seeing this when you have time.

[kelkyag]

One of my friends uses the album package from Marginal Hacks for photos. Another one uses IDS. Both of those appear to support nested galleries, but not tagging; I don't know if that would be sufficient for your purposes.

On the other hand, if you'd rather do your own thumbnail cropping, those may also do more than you want on at least some fronts.

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

Learning to relax can be a difficult thing.

Meanwhile, yay for more Teddy! :D

(And, yes, this has become my pet funding project for the year.) :)

[meeksp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I keep having to remind myself that the neverending to-do list is actually a good thing, because it means people like my sketches enough to want more of them.

Thank you so much for your ongoing support! It's really appreciated :)

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

Thank you for a very cool drawing of Teddy. :)