I saw Ratatouille with my good friend R.J. yesterday afternoon.

I came home and nearly ate myself sick. No, that’s not the message of the movie, but I didn’t have time to cook something for the palate — my belly was screaming.

It’s a wonderful film, but I recommend doing one of the following:

1) Eat a good meal before going.

2) Have dinner reservations for someplace nice and tasty afterwards.

Back in 2003 I hired a colorist, Jean Fioca (used to be Elmore). Having someone else handle the coloring was wonderful, and Jean was great at it. A lot of the coloring tricks I use now I learned looking at her work on my characters.

I’m considering hiring a colorist again. I’m busy enough to justify it, and would love to see somebody willing and able to express themselves through the colors, rather than just going through the motions the way I do. But don’t send in your resumés just yet… the colorist I want to hire is already getting on the job training. She did the flood filling and shading on the last two rows of today’s strip, and almost all the floods for next week. She’s still learning the swatches, and doesn’t know which backgrounds to drop in without coaching from me, but I can tell already that she’ll work out fine if I can keep her interested.

I am going to have to raise her allowance.

My 12-year-old daughter, whom you may know from sandratayler‘s Live Journal as “Kiki,” is my apprentice colorist. She has had some classical art training using pastels and watercolors, but has next to no Photoshop experience. That didn’t stop her from pencilling, scanning, coloring, and shading a picture of Link last week, using Adobe Photoshop Elements. She was coloring using a technique she copied from me — lassoing areas to be shaded and darkening them with the flood tool and swatches that looked right. And the shading DID look right. The girl has a good eye.

Sandra was concerned. “She’s been working on that piece for DAYS now, Howard.”
I checked to see what she was actually working on. “It’s not a problem. She’s trying to darken her pencil lines, and they’re in the same layer as the colors. She’s going pixel by pixel.”
I told Kiki what she was doing wrong, and suggested that since correcting line art in this way was no fun at all, maybe she’d have more fun coloring some clean line art for me. For pay. She was sitting next to me at my computer within 15 minutes.

Naturally, I have some concerns:
1) I don’t want her art style to be mere mimicry of my own. I have to encourage her to experiment — at least once she has the basics down.
2) We are going to have to strike a balance between “Kiki’s Style” and “Staying On Model.”
3) Criticism of Schlock Mercenary may extend to the work she does, and she is not nearly thick-skinned enough to be reading some anonymity-emboldened, blogtarded wannabe tear her work apart.
4) Saddling a 12-year-old with this level of responsibility is a life-changing thing. She may end up with a job skill, or even a full-blown career. Then again, digital art may end up forever poisoned for her.
5) She is not old enough to be famous. Or so says me, anyway. I don’t mind fanboys stalking me down at the comics shop, but the first fanboy who stalks my baby girl is going to to discover that he can breathe through the gurgling hole where his nipple-piercing used to be.

I’m not asking for advice. I already have approaches for numbers 1-3 above, and Kiki and I will be talking about #4. Number five… well, let’s just say that if I have to go to jail because I killed my colorist’s stalker, the comic strip will end. No stalking, okay?

I went to a friend’s wedding reception last night, and his whole family was there, right out of my childhood. We grew up together in Sarasota, Florida, and while he’s getting married in his 30’s, both of his sisters got married just before or right around age 20.

His oldest sister dropped a real bomb on me. She and I were classmates, we hung out together, and she’s only about a year older than I am.

She’s a grandmother now.

I’m 39, and one of my best friends from high-school is a GRANDMOTHER.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go turn up the music too loud, and not wear any sunscreen.

I’m celebrating seven years of Schlock the way I did last year — I’ll be down at Dragon’s Keep working on the comic. In this case I’ll be pencilling and inking the bonus story for the next book.

Odds are good that no well-wishers will stop in (at least none who wouldn’t have come by anyway), but that’s okay. I’m all about getting work done.