I think it’s safe to say that the surgery recovery is about done. I live, I breathe, I carry on. I still have a number of other medical issues to sort through, but such is life.

Oh yeah, I also cut my hair. I’ll be sending it to Locks of Love! My hair isn’t short exactly, I can still make a small pigtail! I thought I’d miss my hair more than I do. I like that it’s less effort!

Lulu has this new book format - mini books. It seems like a fun idea, but since you can only order sets of 3 or 4, I’m not sure what I could do with it. I can see the value of maybe a LOM primer or sorts that people could pass around, but still… So, if you REALLY want to see me do something with that, e-mail me and tell me so.

I’ve been mostly making fan art and posting it here. I hope to get back to cranking out the wallpapers for the donation area here. As for comics, we’ll see. It’s been so long, and my life has been sort of pulling me away enough that I think I have to re-acquaint myself with the story, and the script. I’m mulling the idea of a single panel thing with a similar theme to a life comic - but staring the characters. It would not be canon, but would at least get me practicing a bit.

I had this idea a long time ago, to make a little family album of sorts with art from the comic and donation gift collection. I picked up a small album years ago, but never got around to it. There are still some pages blank, I could possibly fill those with actual doodles or other prints. If you’d like to buy this from me, please e-mail me!

Family Album Preview

I completely forgot to mention this in the last post, but I wanted to give a heads up on this, too. I may also have a rough time creatively after having recovered from surgery if my tech fails before then.

• For several months, my CRT monitor has been on the fritz, and after having my tech gurus evaluate it, they estimate it’s nothing I can fix, that the inner hardware will just go eventually. It was, of course, just past the warranty when this trouble began. I have long preferred CRT’s for color accuracy and clarity, but when I can, I will replace it with the much cheaper, and just as accurate and clear LCD I found.
• My scanner has well and truly died from hardware failure. It had a long (11 years!) and happy life, and served me well (and thanks to fabulous fans, I’ve been able to keep the SCSI needs at bay). My next scanner needs to be the largest surface area I can get, and it will have to be of a certain quality (a large part of my needs for it are scanning large paintings so I can make quality prints of them), and I am considering a cheap and crappy scanner as a band aid. In the meantime, I am stuck borrowing when I can.
• My video card is also coming to the end of it’s life span. It was a hand-me-down, so it’s also having itself a long and useful life… until it totally fries on me, anyway. I’ve tried replacing it, but my motherboard is apparently too old now, and my attempts haven’t done much but waste money I do not have. I was gifted a nearly new PCIe card of vast superiority, but I have no compatible slot.
• Oh, and I’m down to tiny, let-all-the-noise-in, portable headphones, because all others have fried. This may not seem as crucial to the creative process, but not being able to suitably rock out while drawing is horrible! hehe!

If my desktop suffers any more of these expensive failures, I can switch to the laptop, but I have found it to be lacking in the drawing and creating area, but excellent for page layout, and other kinds of work with preexisting art. I was careful to pick something that would do well in an emergency, or for working on site, but it is not the powerhouse my desktop is/was that makes me feel like I can do anything.

SO… yeah, I just figured I’d be somewhat more informative, for those wondering what the heck was going on with me these days.

I think it’s time to update a little.

On May 6th I will be having hernia surgery to repair damage/weakness done by the gall bladder removal years ago. Expect not to hear at all from me in May! While this is perfectly routine, and it seldom goes poorly, I’m not in a state of general health that will make this simple, and recovery will likely take time.

Should you wish to help me prepare, please feel free to browse the wishlist specific to medical needs, but please do not purchase anything from Amazon - e-mail me and we’ll find another source to use. I’ve used Amazon for a while now, depended on them even, but I expect somewhat more from customer service than “Yeah, we screwed up.” and “Yeah, we censor things sometimes.” I feel like there needs to be some serious work on their PR and CS before they can be trusted again.

I’ll try to get one or two more donation gift wallpapers done before then, but seeing as how I have a few other appointments, errands and preparations, I’m not sure what time and energy will be like.

Another new donation gift art, and I also fixed a missing file in the collection.

One donation gift down, so many more to catch up on. What? Comics? Yeah… eventually.

Donation Gift Art, April 2009

Another small flood of drawings for donation gift wallpapers!

Small flood of drawings for donation gift wallpapers! I just thought you’d all like a peek!

I know, I suck in too many ways to even list.

In the interest of trying to kick start the forum, how about this: the 100th member to the new forum will get original signed LOM art. It could be old, it could be new, it could be an original strip, it could be a CD, I have not yet decided. If this works, perhaps I’ll do it again for a later number.

Well, my wrist is much better, but my lower back and hip are still an issue, and apparently I will have some abdominal area surgery to look forward to sometime sooner than later. I’ve been trying not to tax myself, but I still feel pretty tired and sore everywhere all the time (yay arthritis, too). So… for those of you wondering why no comics, that’s why.