Category: Updates from the desk of sorrows

Updates from the Desk of a Brief Summer Break

Posted on June 22, 2024 by deepwatercomic

PSU has a bizarre schedule. Its not just the fact that someone decided that the academic calendar should have every federal and religious holiday known to mankind on it, because reasons (because even if we don’t have the day off, happy whatever? I guess?). But this fact makes finding the start and end dates to a quarter hellish to a person with focus issues- However the most unexplainable scheduling faux pas is the first week of summer break is also . . . finals week? Is that normal for other colleges?

Look all I’m saying is that is if I came up with this schedule I’d be fired. It feels like reading a diary I would have kept while un-medicated for anxiety. ANYWAY-

I start my summer courses on Monday. But I do have some pages that I’ll be posting weekly throughout the Summer. My hope is to do one page a week, if I find I have more time then I’ll start doing two pages.

Things are better, but I’m still just trying to keep maintaining a healthy body and mind. Lord knows I don’t want to pull a Whitney here- a bottle of wine and box of cheez-its are fine in moderation. But certainly not a replacement for actual therapy and working on yourself. Which I’m finding is more akin weeding a seasonal garden infested with bamboo and blackberry bushes then graduating from kindergarten(-one therapy session I’M CUUUURED!!). I’m away from some fragile family who I know I have limited time with. Other family is growing up so fast I’m missing out on milestones I’d like to be a part of. I miss my cat. My focus issues are colliding head-to-head with habits I’ve developed over years to survive and maintain crappy retail jobs and my impeccable customer service smile. I had major surgery after being sick for two years. And then I decided to go get a degree, so we moved from a place we loved. Just, you know, some stressors that people recommend that you don’t do one right after the other.

Also politics, but we won’t get into that here.

Other then the gif

But good things are happening as well. I’m excited for my summer courses, I spent a whole weekend visiting my family; and we spent the whole summer solstice with friends we hadn’t seen in forever.I’m plugging away at the comic, mulling over angles and dialogue. So, like most of life- its not all bad all the time

Update on Current Affairs

Posted on May 30, 2024 by deepwatercomic

If you have any funds to spare- I would highly recommend either one of these charities.

Doctors Without Borders https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/our-response-israel-gaza-war

Palestinian American Medical Association https://palestinian-ama.org/

I also feel the need to show you the plight of Dr. Huda AbuKhater. She gave birth to her daughter, Soma, two days before they bombed Nasser. She has since fled to Egypt with her sick baby daughter, but her family of ten including her husband and two younger brothers are still in Gaza. She has a GoFund me if you are interested in learning more, donating or spreading the word. https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-soma-survive

I am chugging along. I’m posting on bluesky a little more then anywhere else. Its less of a cesspool then twitter and a little less chaotic then tumblr. Or you can always find me on instagram as well. Spring Quarter is almost over so I’ll be posting a few pages soon. Thanks for waiting around friend.

Updates from the desk of actual sorrow

Posted on April 16, 2024 by deepwatercomic

It really feels strange to feel like I have to apologize for being MIA on a blog and website I don’t think anyone (besides my husband) reads. So I’m not going to.

My paternal Grandmother died. She was a wonderful, faithful woman who loved her family fiercely and was a faithful Catholic who died peacefully in her sleep on the feast of Mary’s Solemnity- which I think she would have found incredibly fitting. It was a long haul with heart failure and just, well, old age. But I will always remember the blue house dresses she wore, the way her massive cross, scapular and medals would click together when I would hug her, the way the Jasmine and lemon trees in her backyard would smell. She would try to tell jokes, but would start giggling before she could even get through the first sentence, and no one could understand what she was trying to say- but her laughter was so infectious that we couldn’t help but laugh along. I do hope that with the march of time I don’t forget her French-Canadian accent when she would end every phone call or general conversation with “I’ll pray for you.” And she meant it. I like think Grandma had a direct phone line to the holy trinity, and was frequently discussing matters with Mother Mary. But she did miss my Grandpa very, very, much. And its my sincere hope is that he was there to hold her hand and lead her into the afterlife.

I sincerely want to thank my Aunts, Uncle, and cousins for taking such good care of her so she could spend her last days at home with loved ones. You couldn’t ask for better or more adoring care.

To make matters more complicated my dear cat, Loki, has a malignant tumor on his face. It was written off as a sinus issue during his yearly wellness exam, and developed into a horrible abscesses only a few months later. Thanks to a different vet and a lot of pain meds we have a few more weeks with him. He perked right up as soon as we put him on a schedule of gabapentin! Its like having him back to his (mostly) old self for a little while- Its just a matter of when, not if. Which SUCKS, it absolutely fucking SUCKS to have to make the decision of euthanasia. He was supposed to die in his sleep at twenty after gorging himself on all the tuna and goat cheese his tiny heart desired. But, my little trickster familiar will be at home with us when he goes and that is really, the best outcome in a situation like this.

So its right now after major surgery, with family death, pet sickness that I’m still going to school to complete my Bachelors. (I swear, if I don’t do things on hard mode- apparently they’re just not worth doing AT ALL.) I mean, obviously Deep Water has been pushed to the back burner- and its frankly, this uncomfortable place for it to be (for me at least). Its a story I had hoped would be done about a year ago. I would just hate to push through it right now and then look back and hate the end result, realize I could do better. Because it is my story, and it is worth telling. This isn’t a group project that has deadline or grade. So I’m going to take a few weeks off here, make sure I’m caught up on my school work and try to aim at posting near the end of May.

I hope to see you then. Until then, have a picture of my Familiar in better times. And tell a joke that you can’t finish because you’re laughing to hard in honor of my grandmother.

Updates from the Desk of I’m still Moving Forward- It’s just Slow

Posted on March 12, 2024 by deepwatercomic

I’m here! Still plugging away, though I am unsure if anyone beyond a few wonderful close friends and my wonderful family read these. I did have a rush of bots in the last few weeks. Which was interesting, if a little disappointing

I was working on some other more minor projects for the conventions I’m heading to. Though I have managed to ink to page 215 in the comic, which means once everything is colored and lettered I’ll have about a three month buffer. Whoo!

That’s the thing about progress, sometimes it feels like you’re just crawling through wet clay. Getting nowhere, putting pages and pages out into the void of the internet. Knowing that a page that takes me 6-8 hours to make takes about three seconds to read. Plus all the bullshit with wordpress and tumblr feeding peoples content to Midjourney- Its hard not to get bogged down.

However, I’ve been forcing myself to get one thing done relating to the comic everyday. If its just advertising on one of the many social media sites, penciling out the next page, or jotting down dialogue. I just put my head down and made at least one step everyday towards finishing a piece of this giant puzzle, Its nice to look up every once in a while and see that’s its starting to pay off a little. This comic will get done, the story and the art will be good. It just takes time.

For part of my con prep I was going through the volume 1 & 2, and yeah the art and the start is a little wonky, but damn if there weren’t a few jokes in there that made me smile. I’m proud of what I’ve done. I can’t wait for the day when you, the reader can read from start to finish.

P.S. Speaking of Conventions- Come see me this month at Squatch-con in Port Angeles, its gonna be a blast! I’ll be speaking on a panel about Art and Marine Conservation in the Pacific Northwest. Two of my favorite subjects!

Updates from the Desk of “The Process” Pt. 2

Posted on February 16, 2024 by deepwatercomic

You know whats funny? Is when you have drive and inspiration for a completely different project that will probably never see the light of day. But you know you really, really should focus on the project at hand. But you can’t because your brain keeps playing the super cool pieces and juicy bits from the other unnamed project. So you just sit at your desk, quietly vibrating.

ANYWAY

So, I finish the inking with the micron pens. She’s gorgeous, a beautiful masterpiece- I wish it could be done right here but alas and alack, I made the GREAT decision not to have this comic be in black and white and instead IN COLOR. Because comic artists are notorious for punishing themselves needlessly.

However, even though coloring is the longest step (the step that isn’t pictured is me staring at the wall and sighing loudly) its still a whole lot easier on my wrist and hands then penciling and inking- Probably because there’s very little pressure applied to the paper. Watercolor is a very loose medium, its like the sketch pencil of the paint world.

While I’m erasing pencil lines SOMEONE, (LOKI) decides my empty lap space is an invitation to interrupt my work (because you know my brain doesn’t do that often enough naturally). He then leaves- utterly disillusioned and offended- when he realizes that the eraser is not, in fact, a treat. And my pens and pencils are not, in fact, his toys to toggle with.

I use Copics to make sure I’m giving the characters the same skin tone across the entire comic. I Like alcohol based markers because they work really well with watercolor and don’t bleed. My concern with doing the skin tones in watercolor is that that the skin tones would gradually change over the course of the comic without me noticing. Even if I did have a reference sheet. Which would have been kinda awkward.

Flat colors! With watercolor its all about the layering, waiting for it to dry, layering, waiting for it to dry, getting a cup of tea, layering, dipping my paintbrush in the tea by accident, swearing, getting a new cup of tea while waiting for the page to dry, then layering.

So here we have the original Pg. 200 on the left and the new one on the right. It looks a lot better, Whitney looks a little more concerned when she realizes Merman isn’t in the pool and she’s shielding herself from the onslaught of water in the final panel in a way that makes the water look more violent. Which is what I was going for. Hopefully.

Update from the desk of “The Process”

Posted on February 7, 2024 by deepwatercomic

While y’all are waiting and I am doing my best to distract myself from working. I thought I’d show you a little of my process- how a page is made and what not.

So I usually begin my day with a quick round of figure drawing. Its a great way to stretch and make sure your not clamping down with a fist when you draw. It also allows you to be messy and re-familiarize yourself with the human figure. I really feel like it helps when I’m drawing. Of course these are some that I did two days ago because most mornings I’m applying for part time jobs as art does not currently pay the bills.

(No one wants to work anymore my butt. Most recently I was notified that I “wasn’t wholefoods material” and I think if I rolled my eyes any harder they would have popped out of my skull and rolled down the sidewalk)

Then I start doing Thumbnails- basically there are two things I need to get done today -On the 5th, you get to join me on this lovely journey to the past. (Before I found out that I wasn’t “wholefoods material” truly, a devastating blow.) I need to sketch a “Title page” on the far left and make thumbnails of the rewrote pages on the right. What I really use thumbnails for is panel placement, but if there’s a line of dialogue or an important conversation I like to put that along the side to remind myself of how I want the pacing to go.

Thumbnails are- for all intense and purposes- the messy first draft, the scribbles, the beginning of your process. They do not need to look pretty- they just need to catch the spirit of that image you have in your brain to the paper. So, no pressure.

Because I need to get the revision pages done first, I’ll focus on those instead of the title page. Now that I know what I want my panels to look like from the thumbnails, I’ll go back and see what I originally did- on the left is the original pg.194 (Which is now going to be pg. 200). I keep what I liked and try to “add” more in. As you can see on the right- I’ve added one more panel that has Whitney looking around for Merman a little more to show the rising action of the scene (like wholefoods HR- looking around a cluttered desk for a definition of what “wholefoods material” really means). Since this is all by hand I use a 3.0MM chisel micron pen for the panels, its the same one I usually use to add sound effects (or SFX).

Alright, now lets just pretend that you didn’t notice that I already started inking the page. Because I am nothing if not easily distracted. But the next step is, in fact, inking the page. For the main focus of the panel, which is typically a character- I use a 1.0 Graphic micron pen, then use a 0.1 micron for details like the face- the smaller size gives me more control to accurately ink details like the eyes, nose and mouth. This is the step where I frequently check behind me to make sure Jeff isn’t in a meeting before I yell something along the lines of (to myself, not to Jeff. He does no wrong here) “SHITFUCK. DAMNIT.” when I make a easily correctable mistake. Or sometimes a mistake that is devastating, either way the reaction is disproportionate to the situation. Its all part of the process.

I’ll make another post about the coloring and lettering process, it’ll probably go up next week. However the good news is I am only four inked pages away from where my buffer was originally. My hope is I can start posting pages again by the beginning of March- from there I’ll be posting until the comic is complete!

Update from the desk of Recovery

Posted on January 31, 2024 by deepwatercomic

Its wild coming back to page creation after nearly three and a half months of “inability to draw a stick figure” you’d think that having surgery on/in your torso wouldn’t really affect your drawing skills.

LOL

But of course it does, because the meds hate you and make you feel dumb. Its also difficult to sit up straight for long periods of time. Plus my brain turned into scrambled eggs, I couldn’t focus on anything that wasn’t directly in front of me. But even when I’d sit at my desk or lounge on the couch and stare at a blank piece of paper, pencil in hand, any thought in my head was replaced by a continuous Farting noise. Something like this-
PPPPPBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBFFFFFHHHHHHHHPPPPPPPTTTTTTTT
Except its like, forever.

I wished more than once that I was like those ladies who get out of excision/ hysterectomy surgery and almost instantly feel better. But I wasn’t one of them. My recovery has been abysmally slow. Only recently have I started “feeling” like myself again (and “feeling like myself” is a loaded term. Do I feel like I’m dying each month? . . . No? But would I like to eat without heartburn or feeling like I’ve eaten sixteen tons of cement mix? . . . maybe? I’m at the thirteen (fourteen?) week mark here. One day I think I’ll make a more personal post about the surgery (not that . . . A lot of this wasn’t personal). Right now I’m still processing.


Currently I’m in a pencil/inking stage of pages and struggling with finishing one a day. The muscles in my right wrist and palm are still pretty tight and get fatigued quickly. I’m trying to do stretches and loose figure drawing beforehand to warm up (which I should have been doing all along). Its one major reason why I think my next project will be inked and colored via procreate. I gotta save these sweet, sweet moneymakers!
My hands guys. My hands.

All this to say I’ve redrawn and inked pages 190 &191, I’m a third of the way done with pg 192- Its slow progress- but its moving forward. Next week will be a coloring week, so I think I’ll show what my process is in creating a page. That way I could add pictures!

Update from the desk of revisions

Posted on January 25, 2024 by deepwatercomic

I had a Speech teacher recently mention that I need to have more venerability to connect to a an audience. I don’t know how much I actually believe that, social media really demands that we lay everything bare and claims our attention at all times; and that’s really not me. I like being able to come up for air, you know, touch grass and what not.
So I tried to come up with a compromise. I thought that I would start a little blog of sorts to let people know more about the “making” part of the comic. And also have updates in one place that don’t require you to jump from social media platform to social media platform (But please, feel free to follow me on instagram- that algorithm is evil to artists. ). Also I really want to make this webpage/website work for me rather than me just logging on every once in a while to mutter angrily “what the fuck is this? What the fuck is that? How the shit does that work?” and then crossing my fingers that people can actually use the toggles and navigate the website.
Plus it helps me keep to a deadline! A deadline which has been pretty nebulous so far- I come and go when there are pages to post. Before we moved (the most recent one) I actually had a buffer scheduled to release a bunch of finished pages by-weekly. I’d done it! I’d finally become the adult comic maker that I always wanted to be! Oh Joyous day!
That was until I found some old notes, read them, and ironically it felt like the revisions I had done over time actually took away from the story. The only way I can describe it is that suddenly creating dialog and sketching and inking pages felt like a fatiguing, painfully long slog through waist deep mud. Kind of like Artax slowly sinking into the bog of despair.
It wasn’t writers block, it was worse- a sudden realization that I hated, hated the next planed part of the comic. It felt banal and contrived. The jokes weren’t funny, Merman’s decision to become human wasn’t clear, the time-line didn’t make sense and it abandoned the whole overarching theme of different types of love and how they bond us together.
Now, again, I really want to stress that we moved- and I realized this maybe two weeks before we were literally loading boxes into a 22 ft truck. Not to mention I had major surgery three months ago. Of which I’ve only recently been recovering from. I was hoping the fog of multiple pain meds and the shock of my body getting used to having three less organs was the reason I hated it. That I just wasn’t ready to return to work.
Then I looked at the notes again while unpacking, and yeah, no, I definitely need to rehash the whole middle of the story-which involved a Karaoke scene, some hanging around, a distinct lack of wine and cheez-its and little to no rising action. I am assuming that means that if I hate it. Then the reader will probably hate it too.
The good news is I have time to fix this and I have a plan. My next quarter doesn’t start until April. But don’t be surprised when some pages go missing and then pop back up with alternate text.