Hair.

And so I told myself: once I finish drawing the six-page script that Kim wrote, I will treat myself to something very special from all the hard work that I have been doing. (And this is why we have been neglecting our Posse Blog: we have both been working very hard, creatively and otherwise). I will buy myself manga books.

I thought about it some more.

Eff that noise. I want to splurge on a hair dye job. Something ridiculously girly, impractical and awesome. Besides, as an aspiring graphic novelist, I want those bio pics on the inside cover to look good.

...Maybe I'll still buy those manga books anyway.

--

Thanks to Kim's short script, I've taught myself how to draw dead naked girls, an O-face, and people doing the nasty. And that was just the first two pages! If this writer-artist collaboration ever fails, at least I'll be on my way towards becoming an amateur hentai artist.
Four more pages to go.

Alan Moore on his snake god worship.

Note to self and Kim: start growing a gnarly beard. NOW.

Kidding, kidding. Maybe.

--

Allusive updates:

We are doing baby steps.

I am in JAPAN.

Mission: find a scanner without getting killed.

P.S. Japan now gives me the extra psychological pressure of having to finish what I have started or else COMMITTING SEPPUKU.

Identity

Spiderman was inspired by a fly on a wall. The lasso of truth was conceived by the inventor of the polygraph. Anything can inspire a good story.

An indignant anecdote from our good friend J-Lo led to Asian Girl Posse ("-talking shit in front of me like I can't understand Canto- them and their Asian Girl Posse need to just step.") I actually stopped paying attention to the story because I couldn't get my mind off of the phrase Asian Girl Posse. The name conjured up so many images in my head- a Korean woman drinking tea while breaking a man's neck between her legs, a tiny Viet girl powersliding her souped up Integra into a wall of thugs, and lots of other vaguely ethnic looking girls doing vaguely cliched action movie things.

A story can come from a strange beginning, but a good story can grow and change beyond those first thoughts into something new and interesting. I'm hoping that AGP will do just that.

Character sketch!!!!!

While Kim is busy pounding out a shiny and new storyline, I have been working on character sketches.

One of the girls is a Cambodian-American chick who lives in an RV truck and has a dog named Banjo.

(I HATE the fact that I am without a scanner and have to resort to taking pictures of them on my digital camera--hence the fuzziness. I will be reunited with my scanner after this weekend, so hopefully more clear pictures will be posted shortly.)





Some little glimpses!!!

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This one actually has nothing to do with Asian Girl Posse, but an individual project I've been working on. But like Asian Girl Posse, storyline has drastically changed so the setting and the characters in the above image no longer apply.

Change, change, change.

Love requires persistence, patience and strength.

Don't give up on us yet; we are still here.

After much consensual soul-searching, AGP is evolving into something more complex, nuanced and most importantly--more us.

TO BE CONTINUED....

In the last month, I have read The Watchmen, Fray, Making Comics (Scott McCloud), and Perspective! For Comic Book Artists (David Chelsea). In the meantime, my voice has gotten lower, I've grown man-boobs and my Evangelion anime figurine collection has exponentially grown.

Quick, someone resuscitate me with a Paris Hilton CD.

--

My solo side project, which is also in a graphic novel format, focuses on a relationship between two people. It also involves a big blob. The story is far more forgiving in the visual realism that it demands because it's less about creating a believable environment and more about conveying a certain feeling. It plays well in my favor because my undeveloped technical skills are less conspicuous.

I'm frustrated with making sketches for Asian Girl Posse because AGP obviously cannot propel itself on expressionistic interior-shots of people's talking faces. AGP is an action comic that will demand a lot of awesome, dramatic, three-point perspective shots and people getting punched. And machinery. And other bad-ass shit. And as of right now, I AM NOT GOOD AT DRAWING THOSE KINDS OF THINGS. I think my current biggest frustration is seeing internal glimpses of the visual world that the storyline of AGP demands (this usually happens while I'm running or walking alone), but not quite having the drawing skills necessary to render it in its physical, glorious manifestation.

This is why AGP is happening at a snail's pace. AGP is completely out of my visual element. AGP is pointing a gun at my head every minute of my life reminding me that I am not drawing enough and I am not good enough.

But I'm not giving up just yet. I am not giving up on those brief glimpses that I can see in my mind's eye.

I am temporarily without a scanner so I've been using my digital camera to take pictures of my drawings because I am ghetto fabulous.

They're super-rough--certainly intended more for private practice than for public viewing. Once I buy tracing paper, I just might make a cleaner version.



Drawing's hard when you've been doing large-scale abstract paintings for the last year.

Just keep doing it. Just keep doing it. They're just crappy test dummy drawings for now. But girlfriend's got to start somewhere, right?





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Note to self:
Practice strip much better without dialogue. May make cleaned-up version over the weekend for more practice.