#anyway I've got to get drawing I have a convention this weekend and I will not be able to draw fish during that

[ybkitten]

Just when she was learning how to walk you throw her in the cube??

[scammydoesstuff]

heya, I saw your post and I'm really sorry you had a disappointing experience with Neil; I get that BG3 and Astarion shot him to fame but there's still a lot of fans around for his older roles actively posting fics and art (karl, nikolai ginoviev, kamsi etc), so it's not a dead fandom by any means. Village isn't an 'old' game either (it's only 3 years old??) and anyone who says so is wrong imo. I hope your week gets better~

Thank you for the kind words.

I've been mostly spending the last week recovering from being sick and drawing to get out the negative feelings while also trying to rationalize a lot of that interaction.

Honestly, I didn't want to make that post super long, so I didn't go in-depth with all of it for the sake of brevity (because I tend to over explain and get to be very long winded - as you're about to see). I do want to insist that I don't necessarily blame Neil for it being negative. I'm sure it was mostly on me and I'm also sure I was overreacting. Drawing that was just my way of getting out some of those negative feelings instead of spiraling.

So, in regards to the convention: we wound up waiting basically 2 days to even meet Neil. Not...because we wanted to, mind. His line was crazy long every day and it wasn't uncommon to see people sitting down in his line, usually waiting for him to come back from a panel or a photo op. All the lines were moving slow all weekend, though. Not just his. That was one of my biggest issues with the convention as a whole and a critique genuinely unique to this one since the last Fan Expo I went to wasn't nearly that bad.

Our weekend was unfortunately pretty booked as well, so we couldn't wait all day and, after being in his line for nearly 3 hours that morning and barely moving, we had to leave for a lunch reservation with some friends who could only be there for one day after he left for a panel, cutting the line off. They did give out little numbers to anyone who'd been waiting up until that point to hop back into line later that day, however, if we had somewhere to be.

Due to short staffing at the restaurant, lunch also ran long and we didn't end up getting back until about an hour before the convention hall was set to close. We ran to Neil's line where they were cutting it off and, I'm super ashamed to admit, I let my boyfriend lie our way back into line (he told them we were leaving that night instead of staying the full 3 days we'd paid for, which coerced them to let us enter the line anyway) and spent the rest of the wait feeling guilty and really tempted to leave despite knowing on some level that this would likely be our last chance for the weekend. That's still on me. I could've said no and just left and not been a total piece of shit, but I didn't. Granted, other people got in line after us, so they weren't being that strict about it anyway, but I digress.

Regardless, we were already pushing it and I know that and I regret it. When we get to the front, I already wanted to keep things brief; get an autograph if I could, but mostly show him the Heisenberg plushie I'd made not long after the game came out.

(this is the plushie, btw. He took months to complete because he's entirely hand sewn - with the face being hand-embroidered - and was a major comfort project because of a lot of things going on in my personal life at the time that were causing me major stress. I've been hoping Neil would come to a con close enough for us to travel to at least so I could show him and this weekend was finally the opportunity I was waiting on).

So, we get to the front of the line and I see that he doesn't have any Village prints. Frankly, outside of Astarion, he doesn't have any other character prints except for one, which was a general Resident Evil group kinda thing with all the Resident Evil characters he'd done. There might've been one other, but I don't think it was for a character? It might've just been a headshot, but I could be wrong. I just know it wasn't Heisenberg-related, so I do not remember it clearly.

I was disappointed, but I decided to get the Resident Evil print anyway. I was initially going to have him sign a trench coat I'd made while working on the plushie. It was kinda practice to learn how to make the coat for that project and now it's just...my Heisenberg coat that I wear in winter. It's very warm. But I never ended up showing it to him after we finally get in front of him because the guilt was just too much.

So we start off and I was trying to be jokey and playful as I said 'I'm kinda disappointed you didn't have any Heisenberg prints' while showing him the plushie, but I can definitely see how, regardless of the tone I was trying to use, didn't come across right. So maybe *I* came off as rude instead despite trying to just...start a conversation about how I really liked Heisenberg? Totally possible. I'm not denying that.

And that's when Neil said that they don't bring prints along for Heisenberg anymore. That Village is an older game, so they don't get a lot of requests for it anyway and thus they save space when traveling. More disappointing. I started feeling worse because I could tell he was tired. It was the longest day for the exhibition hall to be open and he was still going even after everyone else was closing. He did arrive an hour after the hall opened, but it was still a long day, I know. I felt guilty and shitty, but, once he was done signing, I could properly show off the plushie - including the little cigars I'd made that he can hold cuz he has magnets in his hands. Maybe that would make him smile and lift his mood, y'know? So I was excited for his reaction and...

Nothing. Maybe a little laugh in that 'oh, that's cute' kinda way. He kinda did the voice when he saw it, but not really. I just...felt myself sink. I felt so embarrassed to have been so excited for this. My boyfriend asked if he could get a picture of Neil holding it and he did, but I was just...done. I wanted to leave because I realized that this was a mistake. It was late, he was tired, and this character doesn't mean much anymore because it's an older game that's been well overshadowed by Baldur's Gate III.

We wrapped up and left and that was it. I couldn't bring myself to say anything about how much Heisenberg meant to me as a character. I couldn't make myself show off the things about the plushie I was so proud of. I just wanted to leave because I felt like such a leech and that I shouldn't have done this.

I'm not dismissing the way I handled all of this. Looking back, I blame myself for my own bad time and I definitely blame myself for that interaction being as bad as it was. Neil was tired and, to a degree, he's right; it's not the new game that everyone's obsessed with right now. I shouldn't take it personally.

But it's easy to say that. It's so much harder to actually follow through with it. I couldn't help but feel upset because everyone else in line who'd seen the plushie would get excited to see it. Even the event manager who was hanging around at the end of the day told me I should sell them. Hell, back in April of this year, I even got to meet Maggie Robertson, who happened to be going to Fan Expo Cleveland (I live in Ohio, so less travel for that one). I thought it'd make her laugh (cuz, y'know, the size difference is accurate, right?) and, despite acting offended that I'd even bring him before her at all, she was still excited to talk about it and seemed to enjoy engaging with it. She was delightful and clearly still loves her character and that game, which made the contrast of meeting Neil so much more striking and...kinda hurtful...

So yeah...Sorry. That's a whole lotta words for 'I'm surely the reason it was so bad', but ye...Kinda got me out of an art funk, I guess. So that's something...maybe...

[someone-always-cares]

chapter 5, page 48

first - previous - next

[image description: an sac webcomic page. "seems like a normal kitchen. coast's clear, but it's locked." jade says, off panel. theres a view of the kitchen from the outside. no acual kitchen appliances are shown, but there is a island counter, and a few shelves in the back with various items, notably camera equipment, cleaning supplies, and assorted boxes. "we'll have to break in here, everything else is boarded. you remember what i taught you about breaking glass?" she continues. "yeah. it'll be loud though" lewis replies. "we'll just have to take whoever hears us." jade states, the panel now showing jade hiding to the side of the window, looking at it out of the corner of her eye, while lewis has wandered off and is kneeled down to pick up something off the ground. "this glass seems sturdier than the wine glasses lewis practiced with... can he do it? i've never been able to get the frequency right, but surely any glass will break with a loud enough noise?" jade thinks to herself, looking through the window, still to the side of it, while frowning contemplatingly. she seems to be unaware of lewis behind her, raising the brick he just picked up like one would when preparing to pitch a baseball, and sticking his tongue out in concentration. end id]

yall are getting a treat with me drawing actual backgrounds the past few pages! my computer fucking hates it and has tried to crash my art program many times but im not losing to a fucking machine so the page is ready to go! and yeah i didnt think to google what a broken wire fence looks like until typing this

anyway some life updates. next page may be a little late, i have a convention this weekend (if anyone is headed to animeleague london anime and gaming festival this weekend feel free to say hi! its the one with the star fairy lights and like. my art in it? yeah. also for the same con in birmingham in a couple weeks)

also ended up getting those wooden pride cat pins! or the charms, i need to glue the actual pin bits in and that tomorrow's task!! and even more importantly, i've started the process of trying to make sac into an actual printed comic!! so far it seems like im just going to start with chapter 1, because with the printer im thinking of using, anything over 76?ish pages is automatically more expensive so currently only have the funds for chapter one (50ish pages inc bonus and prologue).

also because turns out theres more work than i thought. theres some things like getting the colours cmyk ready and fixing typos and other errors, there is some size problems (the first 6 pages in particular need to be redone entirely but not much of a loss. they look.... Not Great. maybe prologue too). also some "accidentally lost some files and the backups of said files in an external drive related incident a couple years ago" but i've got my best experts on the case (asking my dad for help). i also need to change the font since the old pages are using the old version of the font. also a front cover because i never made a cover for chapter 1. anyway. its a start

anyway this was long i really needed to sleep a few hours ago lol. its only 1am but its been a day

[dark-horse76]

Last weekend, I went to my first comic convention! I've been to conventions before (Star Trek ones) but not comic ones.

I was by myself, and it was a bit overwhelming lol. I'd bought the weekend ticket, because I wasn't sure which day I'd go to and was potentially thinking of both. In the end, I heard the Sundays were quieter and so went on Sunday.

If that was quiet, I'd hate to see what busy was 😂There were sooo many people, and it was so noisy.

I didn't go to any of the panels. That felt like too much for this time, so I spent the few hours I was there walking around all the tables, trying to scan for anything that looked interesting but also trying not to get too close and get drawn into sales pitches and/or conversations I'd not be prepared for (I was only semi-successful at this).

I must've had A Look on my face every time I approached a table, because more than one of the people at the stalls said, "It's okay, you can touch them". 😂Which did not, in fact, make me feel any less nervous about touching the comics on display. 😂

I also went up to a stand manned by a couple guys I'd met previously at my local comic shop's social get together. The guy there when I approached didn't recognise me, and he asked what kind of comics I like. Being already so far out of my element, I didn't know how to bring up that we'd met a couple times before and panicked, so I just said I don't know what kind of comics I like 😂(although, tbf, that is essentially the truth hah, no matter how funny it sounds to anyone hearing it) and focussed on my other reason for dropping by their stand - the other guy was debuting a comic at the convention, which I'd backed on Kickstarter, and was there to pick up.

There were a few other people I've met before there (like, a few people who own/work at my local comic book shop), but there were just sooo many people that I didn't cross paths with any of them, except for a person I recognised, having met at another of the comic book shop's social things, who had a stall for their book(s).

Aside from just generally looking around, my other aims for the day were to visit a few specific tables. I picked up my own copy of Ask for Mercy (and a cool bookmark) from Abigail Jill Harding and, fortunately, no one at the table seemed offended when I said I hadn't thought I'd read the book, because the story was too weird for me but that the art is just soooo gorgeous that I have to read it anyway xd (which is good because I didn't mean it offensively) (Seriously. The art is so incredible. I'm going to also give Parliament of Rooks a go, because I think I really love her artwork. Also the title makes me think of Six of Crows, so... xd)

Another top priority was visiting Jacob Phillips's table. I picked up a really cool print of The Enfield Gang Massacre issue #1 cover art and a That Texas Blood button. It has joined the other TTB button I had at home. :D

I'm kind of hoping there will be prints like this of all the covers, because they're interlocking covers, and I'd rather frame the prints instead of the actual comic books.

He was going to sign the poster, but I asked if he could sign something else instead. Last year, before I'd really got into comics but could tell it was a matter of time, I made a little drawing on the subject. And because that represents something for me, how important comics now are to me and how much I love them, I decided I wanted to ask those folk whose work I love and is important to me to sign the back of that (I've actually laminated the drawing and then glued a sheet of cardstock to it). Jacob Phillips's work is very high on that list for me. And he did agree to sign it. He also briefly looked at that terrible awful drawing, so that was embarrassing, but... 😂😂😂

He had some other art for sale, but I was way too nervous to stand there and go through it. It was funny that I already own a copy of almost every single book he had for sale on his table haha. I think there was only one that I don't have, and I think it was one of the Ed Brubaker/Sean Phillips ones that I'm not yet sure I want to try. Although, now that I think about it, if Jacob Phillips was on colours... ngl, that means I do want it. Darn it. My brain was definitely not working by then xd.

I had hoped to come across a couple other people, but did not. One of them is another person whose work is on that "very important to me" list. Next time, perhaps!

There were also a lot of queer tables, which was really cool. I picked up this patch from one of them.

I don't really know what to do with it, 'cause I don't put patches on my clothes or bags lol, but I love it, so I'll have to find something.

I haven't really started on the comics I picked up from the convention yet, except for one. That one (not pictured) is (hopefully) the only dud. I'm a bit of a sucker for the setting/topic and was just so nervous that I basically just agreed to buy them without really looking at them or considering what I thought the odds of the topic being handled well by the creators were. That was definitely my mistake. I kinda feel icky having them in the house, so I'm not totally sure what to do with them lol.

Oh, I did read Zac: Death and Admin. That one's cute, and I hope I can pick up any others that may exist. Ambrosia is also technically a gift for a friend, but I'm gonna read it first xd.

Overall, it was a pretty good day. I'm glad I went, though I kind of wish I'd gone to the first day. Next time, I may have to figure out something for my cats so I can perhaps stay in the town overnight (and not travel way too much) and go to both days. I'm also going to go to panels next time.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

This has been my bio for several months now. Some people may recognize why, but I'd like to make a formal announcement and extend an open invitation to friends, mutuals, and followers alike.

On April 8th, 2024, a total solar eclipse will be visible across the United States, and the path ot totality just so happens to pass through the small town of Wapakoneta, Ohio, the birthplace of astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon.

I think it's amazing that everything has lined up so perfectly, it's a big magical cosmic coincidence. The Moon will be directly overhead where the first moonwalker was born; it feels like a prophecy

Anyway, right now this fact is pretty obscure, but as we get closer to the eclipse I guarantee that people will start talking about it. The town will advertise it to draw in tourists, they may even plan an eclipse party, so I'm getting out ahead of the crowd and planning one myself. The specific coordinates I chose are for the Armstrong Air and Space Museum, though who knows what the museum will have planned for that day; it's too soon to set anything in stone, but I want to get the word out so we can start making plans in that general direction. Whether the museum is open or not, I'm gonna be in Wapakoneta that day, and I want you guys to come too!

I'm going on roadtrip from Florida all the way up the I-75 to Ohio, some 1200 miles, I'll make the weekend of it, see the country, pass through Atlanta, Knoxville, Lexington, Cincinnati, maybe make some stops along the way to see Civil War sites, who knows? I've never been allowed to plan my own vacation before, I've always just gone with the flow of what everyone else wanted to do.

If you want to attend the eclipse party and live within, say, 3 or 4 hours of the I-75, we can carpool or caravan together. If you live way further out and can't make the drive, but catch a flight that lands nearby, I can swing by the airport and pick you up. I'm willing to make detours, we can coordinate everything as we get closer to the date.

There's no official RSVP yet, but if you're interested in coming feel free to hit me up. It's still 2 years out from the eclipse, and a lot can change between now and then, so nothing is concrete yet. It won't be until the middle of next year that we have to start finalizing stuff, so we have plenty of time to figure iron out the details.

I've got friends from all over the country, and I think it would be really nice to have a big meetup. I never got to go to any conventions before the apocalypse started, so this will be a nice public get together as things hopefully return to some semblance of pre-covid normalcy by then. It'll also be a nice distraction from the sure-to-be dumpster fire of the presidential election.

Monday, April 8, 2024

Wapakoneta, Ohio

3:10 PM

Be there, or be square

[xuseokgyu]

I mean I did also play the alto sax in band for like 9 years lmao. Which does mean though that I have almost completely forgotten how to read bass clef cuz alto sax is in treble. (even though I also took cello lessons (i rented the cello lmao they're expensive - cello music is in bass clef) for a summer in high school once. I extreme sight read that, notes who?? i just remembered where my fingers went based on where the note was? but not the name of the notes at all. i could not have named what note I was playing if my life depended on it. (there was a convent (with with nuns lmao) the town over that offered music lessons. they offered all kinds of classes. my sister took singing lessons there for a few years as well.))

.... i got myself budda milk tea on my home from work today lmao cuz i ended up working overtime :// (and the gas pump started like screaming at me when i was trying to get gas so i didn't even get to fill up all the way cuz it scared me :// why was it making that noise :((( ) ah... ginger ale... the iconic airplane drink lol. um i think its kinda a midwest thing to like ginger ale lmao. ginger beer (its not alcoholic idk why it is called that) is better honestly but more expensive, also mostly used as a mixer but i think its also just good to drink plain. its sharper tasting... i'd go so broke though buying that. oohh that does sound good tho! I have american lemonade in my fridge currently lol cuz i was making myself arnold palmers (half lemonade and half black tea)!

also for the reveal did you want something (besides the obligatory picture of my cat)?? the only thing i could possibly offer would be a quick drawing um but you would probably have to wait till the weekend to receive it. i also haven't drawn in a long while.... rip. tho I have been meaning to get back into the habit lol i've just been spending all my free time reading silly comics and novels on my phone lmao. anyways if you want a lil drawing what would you want? theme and person please? or ref pic(s)? please just one person for time reasons tho lol.

Aaahh this is all so cool!! So much music in your life <33

Cellos have one of my favorite sounds! I was a soprano (guess I still am haha but I lack practice and proper warm up) but I looove deep and low sounds, I can feel them in my chest when I hear it if that makes any sense hehe

And I’ll definitely try ginger ale and ginger beer if I ever come across it!!

Don’t worry much about the reveal! But since you’re offering I would very much like a little drawing of The8 👀 No specific image, feel free to choose whatever reference you think is simpler since you’re coming back after a long time and take as long as you need 💕