Teel McClanahan

Seriously, I’m on my way to bed after spending the last seven or eight hours (I’ve lost track; Iain, when did I say I was starting?) simply drawing an ambitious experimental comic tonight. I created 138 .gif files tonight. I have no idea how many “panels” they make up. I probably won’t after I get through putting it together, either.

Wow. Eight hours? Longer, if I count writing the paper script. This is taking a while. And the next step, the actually getting it put together into DHTML and JS and working and tested and wonderful and all that business, all the coding that it’s going to take to string these 138 images together into a coherent whole… I expect it to take at least as long as the drawing took, if not … two or three times longer.

Whoo.

Oh, here’s a quick pic of the lamps I just finished. I’ll get more online when I’m not about to pass out.

Anyway, yeah. I’m physically tired, not just because of the long day, but from the drawing. I don’t know how many of you draw, but have you ever done it eight hours straight? Starting at the “end” of the day, for that matter? Not the best idea. But I didn’t want to stop before I had the entire thing drawn. Success!

And now, sleep, and tomorrow … sanding, I think. And then more sanding. And then later that day, coding. Whee!

Anyone want to buy a lamp?

Can you believe I missed 20k by only 325 words? Wow. I

Where am I at?

I live in Pine, Arizona, USA. I live on one acre with my grandparents, my father, and my younger brother. I, luckily, do not share a living space with my father and his parents, but instead with my brother. This affords me some level of comfort, privacy, and personal space that I appreciate.

I have been unemployed for about seventeen months, though by the grace of God and the love of my family I have never come short of paying my bills in that time, nor do I expect to. I live comfortably; I have a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and food in my belly. My survival needs are met.

I have recently begun work in a new field, that of hand-crafting furniture (mostly natural form wood furniture), and I am beginning to become comfortable with it and to see results. Soon enough, the labor of my hands will be available for the public to purchase, and that will be an excellent source on income to continue to meet my needs. Working with my hands is a uniquely satisfying way of earning a living.

I am continuing creative work in the areas of interest I had begun before. I am writing, I am drawing, I am painting, I am coding, and I am exploring new avenues as well. I completed my first novel this month, and I expect to have my second novel edited and published by the end of March. I have begun transcribing the short stories and poetry that I wrote in and around the time I was in high school, and I will edit and compile them for use in a future publication/collection. I have begun work on two new novels and several new short stories, of which I hope to have at least one of the novels and all of the short stories completed and available in one form or another before the end of April.

I have taken a temporary break from painting, but my mind hasn

A quick post:

I couldn’t watch the Oscars (I have only “cable” channels on my current satellite setup), but I’ve just looked up the winners online.

Apparently, LotR:RotK won in every single category in which it was nominated, winning 11 awards. That’s pretty good.

As I expected, Lost in Translation won for Best Original Screenplay and Sean Penn won over Bill Murray. I still haven’t seen either film, but here’s my response: If Will Ferrell had been recognized for his role in Elf, he could have beat them both. Or perhaps I’m silly.

Sadly, Destino did not win Best Short Film (Animated), but happily, Finding Nemo won Best Animated Feature Film.

Sadly, though known, neither Matrix film was nominated for anything. At all. Not even technical awards or science awards. It’s as though none of the academy members even saw the films. $300million dollars spent on developing new visual effects systems, and nothing. WTF?

Oh well. That’s the way the Oscar crumbles.

Okay, so this isn’t going so well. I’m twenty minutes in, hardly have any words typed, and haven’t even finished the basics of the drawing for the first panel.

Did I mention that four-hour comics are crazy? Have you tried one?

I’m building a frame-work, though, so perhaps when I start working from the framework, everything will go faster.

Or maybe it won’t. I’ll keep you updated.

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Okay . I . I got the basis for the comic together. With very few exceptions, this will greatly increase the speed with which I should be able to draw panels. SO, I’m going to go get at least … twenty panels done, see where I’m at, and report back here. The time is now … 8:11 PM.

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Okay, this is going slow. It is now … 9:26 PM, and I’ve just finished the 6th panel. I think part of the problem is that I am completely re-drawing everything in every panel. And that I am using a semi-realistic setting and perspective and humans. This shouldn’t be taking this long. 5 panels an hour is too, too slow. And how many words is this? Not nearly enough.

So, here’s something else: I was planning of releasing this four-hour comic three days a week, and I created the storyline so that it could easily be broken into four or five panel-long sections that make sense on their own. If I get to 60 panels, the story should last over a month. And actually, the story I have in mind is just part one of a longer story. So. You wouldn’t know whether I finished all the panels in four hours or not, so long as it all appears online in the appropriate schedule, right?

So my focus for a bit will be to get to the 3500 words or so I need to pass 20k words (and beat Iain’s word total).

Here’s a little something about my lamps:

I actually got them both finished today. I even took a series of photographs of them, though due to technological limitations, it appears that I will not be able to put them online until some time tomorrow at the earliest. I think I’ll ask … $250 per lamp, and perhaps offer the pair for as low as $400. There’s a possibility that these prices are too low for people to take them seriously. Which is weird. ’cause I doubt I would spend $200-$300 apiece on table lamps, myself. But I’ve looked at what other people are charging for similar work and it’s there and upwards.

On a similar, and somewhat strange note, I’ve just put together rough sketches and discussions and Heath and I will be working together on another … lamp. Yes, a lamp. A little welding, a little metal-cutting, a lot of grinding, and then … something special. And then some (predictable) trouble getting the very last step or two done, but then it’ll be a lamp we can sell for the same price or more. And it’ll be more in line with the way my creative mind operates than these natural form wood projects started out.

I think I’ll get the feel for wood design after more experience. This idea though, it’s “abstract” and “modern” and I think the sort of people who like my art will really like it.

Which, unfortunately, probably means that no one with money will like it. Sigh.

I’m coming up on eleven o’clock, I’ve got all of 6 panels done on my comic so far, and this post is only about 600 words so far.

I’m going to try another post, see if I can put out 3k words on one topic.

After I do that, since I didn’t get out of bed until 1:30PM today, I may stay up late working on the comic. You’ll see it Monday anyway, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays is when I’ll update it. I hope you like it.