Comics	Experimental	Polished	Ref	Self-portrait
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009

I saw a few other sites doing this decade recap thing and I thought I’d give it a try :)  It’s amazing how it all adds up.  I’d like to give a quick word for what was going on with each year, I’ll try to be brief.

	Comics	Experimental	Polished	Ref	Self-portrait
2000

In 2000 I was mostly still doodling.  Basically everything I drew was an experiment (which is why I left the "experimental" item blank).  My polished work was sort-of colored in the computer, but I didn’t quite get shadows yet.  When trying to draw from a reference, I set my sights lower than photos and instead drew other people’s drawings.  And finally, my self-portrait was at the tail end of my "goth is cool" phase.

	Comics	Experimental	Polished	Ref	Self-portrait
2001

2001 was the first time I was drawing with others.  I was in LA and hooked up with people for "sketch parties" thrown by the (soon to be) admins on drawingboard.org Basically, I was socializing with real artists and art school grads who were as encouraging as they were inspiring.  I drew a lot more that year and the group passed plenty of advice my way.  I found myself drawing one-panel comics, working from photo references and attempting to take things to a much more polished state (though I still had much to learn about anatomy, light/shadow, composition, etc).  At the time I was experimenting with the nearly-overwhelming idea of drawing **an entire comicbook page**.  Something I didn’t thing I could do until I used an x-men comic as a reference and drew the whole first page. (I was excited, but ended up getting flamed on forums for copying vs making my own comic)

	Comics	Experimental	Polished	Ref	Self-portrait
2002

In 2002 someone told me that all I had to do was spend 10 minutes a day drawing and I’d get good at it.  Basically, he was encouraging me to practice.  So I created a "sketch calendar" where I posted what I drew each day and tried to draw for at least 10 minutes each day.  Even though I was still just stumbling though trying to teach myself to draw, it really did make a difference.  You can see this by my experiments with longer comics (a page or more) since they show a lot of work, but also show a lack of composition and can be downright hard to read/follow.  I also tried to participate on various forums more for motivation and ideas.  The polished piece is a self portrait done in the Gorillaz art style, which was a forum jam.  Also the reference sketch was another forum jam.  I kept up with the sketch calendar’s 10 minutes a day for 9 months straight until….

	Comics	Experimental	Polished	Ref	Self-portrait
2003

So what happened in 2003?  Why is it that I only have 3 pages of doodles in my sketchbook to show for it?  Well it’s quite simple.  My girlfriend, whom I was living with, turned out to need a lot of attention.  As in, an unhealthy amount.  2003 was over by the time the whole ordeal with her was officially done with.  A word of advice, if you’re significant other is not letting you have time to do what you love to do, maybe they shouldn’t be so significant.

	Comics	Experimental	Polished	Ref	Self-portrait
2004

After kicking a certain girl to the curb, I tried to jump right back into my sketch calendar in 2004.  I only did it for about 3 months this time, not because I didn’t have time, but because I was starting to out grow it.  I was working on comics (like the Dragon Ball Z spoof) that took way more than 10 minutes, and in many cases took multiple days.  I was starting to find the patience to work on one piece for an extended amount of time and was satisfied with my progress/pace to stay excited and motivated enough to keep working on a single piece.  I was attempting to draw things other than girls and cartoons, like flowers, motorcycles, and space ships.  At that time I was also discovering manga and started experimenting with more of that style of drawing.

	Comics	Experimental	Polished	Ref	Self-portrait
2005

 In 2005, I met Alberto Ruiz at Wondercon here in San Francisco.  I loved his work from his posts on forums and only went to the convention to see him in artist alley.  I was such a fan-boy that I blurted out "how do you draw so good?".  And he actually told me.  He gave me a quick lesson on how he tackles a drawing and then told me that he spends time every day doing slide-show sketching.  That is, he has a bunch of photo reference on his computer that he sets to randomly display for 30 seconds or a few minutes each and just sketches away at whatever is onscreen.  So I started experimenting with that and I’d never filled up so much paper so fast.  I also continued to drop by various online forums from time to time to participate in a sketch jam.

	Comics	Experimental	Polished	Ref	Self-portrait
2006

Katie Cat and Juvenile Drivel were started in 2006.  I figured, if I could post a comic or two each week, I’d eventually have a whole comicbooks worth of material.  And it worked.  Having a milestone to post a comic online each week really helped.  I also specifically targeted art styles that would keep the project doable and possible to keep up with (while working a full time job).  I also got a tablet pc, so my process changed since inking became soooo much easier.  I did a lot of experimenting with process and approaches using the tablet in an effort to streamline my work flow as much as possible. This was put to the test when I took the 24 hour comic challenge (along with a couple sketchcrawl friends, Paul and Ryan).  Which brings me to the next point, I was also pretty into Sketchcrawl in the San Francisco area.

	Comics	Experimental	Polished	Ref	Self-portrait
2007

2007 was a crazy year.  After a twist of fate, I found myself unemployed for a lot of the year.  This left me 40 hours a week to draw –I mean, look for a job….  The most notable thing was the Vacation Comic and my Comic Journal.  I was drawing a comic every day plus the comics that would ultimately make up a book for my fiance.  I got A LOT of drawing practice in and a lot more workflow streamlining in.  I was experimenting with painting via the tablet pc, but never really got a change to stick with it.  However my confidence with the tablet and cartoon/sunday-comics style.  I finally decided to invest real money in my drawing and started taking night classes at SFAI.  I also found some places to go life drawing, something I’ve never actually done.  Finally, I was drawing real anatomy from a real live reference and learning new techniques.  This was also the year I discovered Bay Area Artists Unite, which is a small group, but a dedicated one.  I gave them about 30 pages of "You had me at croissant" for their annual.

	Comics	Experimental	Polished	Ref	Self-portrait
2008

I got the first order of "you had me at croissant" in early 2008.  It was, by far, the biggest project I’ve attempted and it actually got finished :)  I started taking Chinese Brush Painting classes with my fiance, which was a good experience, I’ve got plenty of posts about it.  I discovered entervoid.com (which is all about user drawn comic battles) and I started their "draw 50 hands" challenge (because I can’t draw hands and needed practice).  This was also the year I game up with the Blonde Shelly concept (which is the idea of having a nude female character in a story, but somehow making her NOT the main character –it was basically a self imposed challenge.)  I also kept in touch with Marc (from my previous job) and experimented a lot with his style of starting and ending with pen.  It was a very different way to draw.  You have to really plan before you lay down your lines.

	Comics	Experimental	Polished	Ref	Self-portrait
2009

I was working full time again, making games, for all of 2009, so I didn’t draw anywhere near as much as when I wasn’t working.  I didn’t draw hardly any comics or cartoons at all (maybe I was burned out on comics? or maybe I just didn’t have much time to draw).  Again I took night classes at SFAI, including an Anatomy class.  That class made a big difference.  For the first time, I had someone telling me "no, not like that, do this."  I mean, I finally had an instructor that did more than blindly encourage everyone.  He pointed right at mistakes and say "that’s wrong", then he showed you how to do it right.  My life drawing improved greatly in 3 months.  I also experimented with some abstract ideas in the other drawing class.  I usually *hate* abstract art… but it was a fun experience.  Finally, a friend of mine setup a private lesson with a watercolor painter.  Watercolor is much different than Chinese Brush Painting, it’s something I’d like to try again in the future (even if I am terrified of painting in color)

Now, what have I learned from all this?  Where do I go from here?  What do I do next? 

Well, I don’t have any comicbooks planned at the moment.  I have plenty of ideas, but no real plan for completing them like I have in the past (which means they won’t get done! :)  However, I’m in a different head-space lately.  I’d really like to practice at getting better.  I mean, I’d like to learn/practice new techniques and get better, not just draw what I’m already comfortable with (which is cartoony-comic that allow me to hide the things I’m bad at drawing… like hands).  I’ve already signed up for a couple more night classes: intermediate drawing and drawing motion (I’m excited about that last one).

In the end, I think the biggest lesson to learn from all this is: the years I practiced the most, I improved the most.

You only fail if you stop trying,
~Danny

PS: It’s 2010!!  Where the hell is my flying car!?

Here’s a thought: don’t clean up your hobby –or whatever it is you’d like to get done but keep putting off.

Why is it that so many people come home from work and waste away watching tv? I have this theroey that it’s because tv is so easy. There’s no obsticals to overcome, no work to do –it’s already hooked up! If you had to hook up your tv every time you wanted to use it, and then disconnect it and put it away when you were done watching it, no one would bother! :) it wouldn’t be relaxing, it would be work.

So why do we even consider “putting things away”? (especially our favorite things) The act of setting up and putting away can turn something you want to do into something that’s too much trouble to do. (seriously, would you watch tv if you had to set it up and dismantle it when you were done?).

I realized that, after a long day at work, I often just take the path of least resistence, which is tv. This also means a week will go by and I’ll ask myself, “why haven’t I done any of the stuff I wanted to do ( like sketch or paint )?”

All of this clicked in my head for me after I tried out a suggestion from some one in my painting class. “the trick is, you’ve got to set everthing up and then leave it out. Don’t clean anything up and you’ll alway be able to paint on a moments notice.”

And It worked! I’d find myself wandering past my ready-to-go painting desk and spotting something I wanted to try out. I’d make a few brush strokes while standing and find myself sitting down. Then, next I realized, it’s two hours later. Much of the time I’d normally find myself in front of the tv, I now found myself painting. :)

It worked so well that I went out and bought a bigger desk. :)

 I wanted to get this online in some public place so people doing a google on this same issue might find some ideas.

HOWEVER, ANYTHING YOU DO TO YOUR COMPUTER IS AT YOUR OWN RISK.  I’m not advising you to do anything, I’m just sharing my experience with the issue.

BTW, my 2nd monitor is an LG Flatron, but I really don’t see how that would make a difference with any of the issues noted in this post.

Issue: Display settings reset about every 3 minutes (sometimes less)

Fresh out of the box, I turned on my new Fujitsu LifeBook T5010, went through the 1st time "welcome to vista" stuff and then dropped it in the docking cradle so I could use my second monitor.  I set my display setting to use both the laptop screen and my monitor and to "extend" my desktop onto my second monitor.  Then I popped on line to download firefox or crome or something, my screen went black for a second and came back with both monitors on and in clone view.  This was the issue… about 20 time in the first 3 hours, my display settings would simply reset and I’d have to reset them.  I was, of course, unhappy (an understatement) and on the verge of putting it back in the box and sending it back because it’s useless to me if my second monitor wasn’t going to work (and after paying a few thousand dollars for it…ug!).

Solution

The short answer:

1. open the task manager (ctrl+alt+del) and click on the processes tab, then locate the "FjEvents.exe".  Right click on it and end process.  
2. Now go to C:\Program Files\Fujitsu\Utils and rename the file "FjEvents.exe" to "FjEvents_disable.exe".

The long answer.  

I eventually realized that if I reset my display settings and then opened the task manager, 4 seconds later my display settings would be reset.  So I could reproduct the error 100% of the time.  From there I just started killing processes I didn’t recognise and then resetting my display settings and reopening the task manager until it didn’t happen again.  The problem went away when I ended task on a bunch of exe’s that all started with "Fj…".  I rebooted a couple times and narrowed it down to "FjEvents.exe"

after that I did a search on my computer for the exe and double clicked it… instantly my display settings were reset.

finally, I renamed the file in an attemp to disable it when the machine starts up.

Issues: Display settings reset on startup and when docked

as the title notes, if I started up the machine, it would reach my desktop and everything would be find, then something would cause my display settings to switch from extended desktop to clone view while the computer was still grinding away with the last parts of the startup.  I also noticed the display settings would also reset when I undocked and redocked the laptop.

Solution

The short answer:

1. find C:\Program Files\Fujitsu\Utils\FjDock.exe
2. renamed it to FjDock_disabled.exe

The long answer.

I found the directory that had FjEvents.exe in it and noted that it would reset my display settings if I double clicked on it.  So I started double clicking other "Fj…exe" files to see if they’d do the same.  I found that FjDispSw.exe and FjDock.exe both did… and since I’m using a docking station, I tried renaming FJDock.exe and rebooting.

The issue was gone on startup.  I then undocked and redocked the laptop a few times to make sure the FjDock.exe wasn’t doing something obviously needed… and my mouse and monitor continued to get detected every time a docked the laptop.

 

So I’m sure you’re thinking "well that’s a pretty stupid flash app," –and you’re right!!  It’s very small and insignificant however it involves a huge frigging workaround since AS3 doesn’t have a clone function for MovieClips.

Warning: If you don’t code AS3 this is going to get really boring really fast.

Okay so all I wanted was "newMovieClip = SomeRandomMovieClip.clone();"  I wanted to clone the frames, the timing, the current x/y location, rotation, scale, etc, etc.  I just wanted it to work but "clone" doesn’t exist.  It’s what you might call a huge frigging oversight in the language’s framework.

So I look up on google and found lots and lots of people are all having this same problem.  What’s worse is each time someone asked the question "there’s no MovieClip.clone()? what should I do?" they are met with answers that don’t help at all.  Like the following:

(more…)

I was trying to load an image into my swf from an off site location and kept getting this:


Error #2044: Unhandled securityError:. text=Error #2048: Security sandbox violation:http://some.site.com/fbpoker/flash/home.swf cannot load data from http://www.some.other.site.com/danny.jpg.
at ClassName/FuctionName()


There are many reason you could get this error, but one of them happens to be that fact that I was using a flash.net.URLLoader instead of a flash.display.Loader

Lesson Learned.
~Danny