I pencilled and inked six days of comics today. Yeah, my arm hurts, but it doesn’t really hurt any worse than I remember it hurting when I was doing this kind of stuff in January. I’ve been careful to ice it, and stretch, and stuff. To be honest, it feels good — like a good workout. Besides, I like having a week of comics done. I only got one day done last week (I lost a week of buffer), so today’s work was psychologically very important to me.
I’ll be taking a couple of days off (Wednesday and Thursday) before a weekend of drawing at A-Kon in Dallas.
After that… well, I think the buffer is going to have to hover between 47 and 53 for a month or so while I finish the book. Building the buffer beyond that point is just a numbers game, while finishing the next book actually puts money in the bank.
I saw Pirates III today and loved it. I laughed. I cheered. I cried. I pondered. I had piles of fun. I waited until the very end of the credits, and I’m glad I did.
The plot was very complex, but I paid attention, and was rewarded for that. The film hangs together very, very nicely. The first film is still better as a stand-alone offering, but this film and the 2nd one are better overall (and pretty much have to be treated as a pair.)
Every question the 2nd film left me with was answered to my satisfaction in the third one. And I had a LOT of questions.
My only complaint (other than the bladder complaints, but that’s my fault for not ordering a smaller drink) was that the Kraken was handled a little too conveniently. They made a great point with it, but storywise it didn’t make much sense. Beckett would not have relinquished control of a tool like that unless it was dangerous to him personally, and that danger was never described.
The Evoluent mouse that somebody recommended a week or two back finally arrived. The principle behind the thing is that if you mouse with a regular mouse the bones in your forearm are rotated to full extension, stressing the arm. This mouse is worked from a “handshake” position, so that the arm is in a more relaxed position.
It feels great.
It also has nifty programmable buttons, and an uber-cool “speed toggle.” I configured it so that when I smack CTRL-Windows and it toggles between ultra slow and fairly zippy, allowing me to switch between detail work in one spot, and grabbing a tool on the 2nd monitor without having to pick the mouse up.
It also doesn’t need to be picked up. Because of the way it’s laid out you can just tip it to the side and scoot it in order to reposition it on the mouse-pad.
I’ve had it for a day and I love it enough to recommend it.
I started feeling a little under the weather yesterday as I was inking, so I gave up early and came home at around 4:00pm.
By bedtime I was wiped out.
I spent most of today in bed. It’s kind of a blur, but I think that the total amount of time I’ve spent NOT in bed is less than three hours.
Okay, fine. I’ve got two conventions to do in the next two weeks, and very little on the docket that absolutely MUST be done before the weekend, so I’m prioritizing “get better” at the top of the list. Of course, right now I’m so sick of having been in bed all day that I had to get out and do something. Maybe after I finish this whiney blog post I’ll color something.