Hallelujah, I Have my Life Back

So apparently I'm done with Artists-at-the-Ready. WOOHOO!!! Whoops, sorry, I'm supposed to be a disgruntled loser, aren't I… boohoo? Ha, no, I'm actually extremely happy to be done with this thing. It's been going on for a year, and it's been interfering too much with everything else I want to be doing, enough is enough.

I confess my motivation has been waning on AATR with each round… Mainly because AATR has been holding up all my other projects… But partly because of all the drama and weird attitudes from some of the judges, and partly because I've been feeling like my story keeps getting steered further and further from anything I want to do… Also partly because I've never been comfortable casting myself as the "hero" of this thing and I'm reeeeally sick of drawing myself. And my plan of avoiding the use of judge characters has been getting more and more awkward (I just… don't like using judge characters, sorry. Especially not judge characters that are alter-egos of the actual real-life judges. There's so many levels of awkward in that situation. So I've mostly avoided judge characters in every tournament I've done.)

<sub>Also to be honest, I feel like what the judges really wanted story-wise was a typical artist-has-big-breakthrough-turns-into-hero-defeats-big-baddy kind of plot, preferably involving the judge characters and/or stuff from the last AATR. And I just have no enthusiasm for that. Sorry, can't do it.

Especially since any plot like that can veer into Mary-Sue territory way too easily and I'm trying to avoid creating a Mary-Sue-Me, that would be altogether too horrifying…</sub>

Also real life is getting increasingly busy, I have less and less time for tournaments now. During that final round of AATR, I've started four new jobs, turned around an actual paying comic gig, attended this awesome virtual seminar with talks from major players in entertainment, illustration, and games (Pixar! EA! Obsidian! WotC! Syd Mead! George Pratt! Sterling Hundley! John English!  Awesomesauce!!) and I started taking an intensive "Crash Course" in illustration that's going to run all Summer. So I was a bit distracted from working on AATR this last round, haha… (Come on, when it's a choice between "work on a silly tournament" and "QA with freaking PIXAR", what do you think I'm gonna choose…?) And things are only going to get more intense at this rate.

BUT I'M DONE NOW. HALLELUJAH! About time. And I think I'm swearing off tournaments for a good long time now, unless something comes along that's super-short and super-fun.

I'm super-excited to start working on everything else I have planned. Most especially finally FINALLY getting my webcomic launched. It's been put off by six tournaments now. This must stop. IT MUST LAUNCH. Preferably before Summer is over.

So far on my list of stuff I can now work on:
WEBCOMIC.
I now want to do some kind of "Adventures in Art" comic, taking the art theme I started in AATR and doing it justice, since that whole plan fell by the wayside during the tournament and never went where I wanted it to… (I'll probably use a different cast, though.)
I have vague plans for Coma and company that I'd like to flesh out into some sort of comic, I've never had time for that.
I have a massive backlist of paintings I want to do (and some started that I need to finish.)
Plus maybe now I can clear off some of that old junk on my to-do list. That would be nice.

EXPECT ART. Lots of it! All kinds! Okay, off to draw non-tournament stuff, WEBCOMICS ARE GO!

TO-DO LIST FROM HELL:

---

The Almighty Webcomic of Doom: THIS IS NOW TOP PRIORITY
Goal: 100 backlog pages to be finished before launch:
Penciled: 124 pages
Inked: 94 pages, and six partly inked
Main Cover: About one fourth painted...
Chapter Cover: In early stages of painting...
Website: Almost done

ea-lec Spectator Entry: "Tricky Treats"
14 pages thumbnailed - 3 pages roughed - 7 pages inked (Okay, maybe I can finish this by THIS Halloween, haha...)

ea-lec Match - Erroneous vs. 's Hira</a>:
28 pages thumbnailed - 4 pages roughed - 14 pages inked (Might still try to finish this in between other things. I hate leaving things unfinished.)

Miscellaneous:
Byako prizes for diana-hnd, Dadrick, King-of-Diamonds, jetpilot55, Silence-Draconis... (MAYBE I CAN DO THESE NOW OH BOY...)