R.A.N.T

Ida has been busy...

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:11:00 +0000

...but you probably know that already. What you probably DON'T know, however, is WHAT I've been busy with - y'know, that 'secret project' I've been babbling about when I've been babbling at all for the last few months. Well, the fact is, that secret project is now officially done with. And it went well, which means I won't just pass over it and never mention it again as I would've if it didn't go well - I'll actually tell you about it. Imagine that. ^_^;

So, Ida's secret project? This is it.

Yes, I told you it had nothing to do with comics. (Also, that picture is shit. In fact, every single picture so far has been shit. I'll post some good ones once they exist)

Of course, this going well means that's I'll be... uhm... well, I have to make more cosplay. Dangn it. ^_^; Fear not, though - I have plenty of time and I WILL have time to make more comic in the mean time. In fact, I'm working on something comic-related right now! (Not saying what it is, though - yes, the secrecy has damaged me. Gotta do soemthing about that...)

Oh, and America? You rock. ^_^ I'm probably the last person on the internet to say that, but better late than never. That was awesome.

Hi.

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:15:00 +0000

Hi everybody.

This is... well, writing this was not easy. I can tell you that much. This is a post that I've been meaning to write for a long time now, but put off every time because of the difficulty. Of course, doing so only made finally doing it that more difficult. But at this point, not writing it would have been worse.

Here we go: I've grown sick and tired of this. Not of the story, not of the characters, not of the comic itset. What I've grown sick and tired of is the running of a webcomic, of the keeping up with a schedule, and the apologizing and bad conscience every time I fail to do so, which has, truth be told, been more often than not for the last long haul. When I started this comic, I did so with the intention and will to produce a regularly-updated, high-quality webcomic that would hopefully be popular, or at least attract some readers. When I did so, I was also 16 years old, deeply ingrained in the webcomics community, had very few friends, and even less to do with my spare time. Now, I'm a few days short of 21 years old, and pretty much everything has changed since I started out: I've slipped completely out of the webcomics community, I don't really read any (other) webcomics any more, I have plenty of friends, and I have projects and work enough to fill a 28-hour day. And keeping a work-heavy webcomic regularly updated just isn't worth as much to me as it used to be.

Don't get me wrong here; I love this comic, I love making it, and I love to see it updated, but let's be frank here. I'm not going to make anything close to a living off of this, ever (not that that was ever my intention). I'm starting college next year. In other words, there's no reason for me to believe that balancing weekly updates with school, work and everyday chores is going to be any easier within the foreseeable future. And increasingly, I've felt that updating weekly was not only becoming impossible, but, possibly worse, it was becoming a chore, prohibiting me from working on the projects I really wanted to do, because there was always a deadline to meet first. It was becoming something that took away enjoyment rather than creating it. Something I did because I had to. Something I did for you, the readers, and not for me.

And as much as I love you, that just doesn't work.

I have to find a way to make this comic work with my everyday life, to make it not take away from my other projects, for it to be enjoyable again. Otherwise, I won't be able to see it through to the end.

So, I've been thinking. I've considered different possibilities - some with more, but lower quality updates, others with rarer, better updates, and some with no updates at all - but in the end, there was only one way to do it. The schedule has to go.

From now on, Mechagical Girl Lisa A.N.T will update whenever the heck I feel like it. It will be less often than once a week, but more often than never, and there will be no more filler. And the pages will be finished. Really finished. Every single one of them. This blog will be updated again. With comments. With completely off-topic stuff. But never again with apologies.

I realize that this is less than optimal for you, the readers, and I'm sorry about letting you down reapeatedly - first with the missing updates, then with the broken promises and then with the silence. This is so I won't have to let you down any more.

So this is it. No more promises. No more delays. No more apologies.

...but a buttload of mechagical girl action coming at you - when it's done.

Thank you for reading.

Slight Delay this Monday

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:03:00 +0000

I'm not actually behind schedule here - the thing is that I got a very sudden change of plans for the weekend (in a good way, don't worry), and since I'd planned to color this Monday's page over the weekend in the very likely even that I wouldn't be going anywhere, it's, well, not done. I'll be back on Monday, though, and if I'm not home TOO late I'll color it then - till then, I've uploaded an extremely seasonally-inappropriate thing I just realized I made several months ago (hence the seasonally-inappropriateness) and never uploaded. The real page will be better, but this will be better than NOTHING. Or so I hope.

Also, that's not supposed to be a bush. You'd think half a year in DRAWING SCHOOL would've helped my art, but no... ^_^;

Victory!

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:25:00 +0000

After several hours of fighting, I managed to beat it into submission... or so I hope. At least now most of the page should make sense. ^_^;

Well, I'm off to Greece! As said, there won't be a regular update next Monday, but I made a quick sketch filler that will hopefully entertain you while I'm gone. Till then, enjoy the summer that is most likely plagueing your home country (unless you're scandinavian like me, in which case you should enjoy the summer that is rumored to hit your home country while I'm gone.)

What the page says, pretty much

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:21:00 +0000

...well, except that I am actually (thank Newton) in the coloring and lettering phase currently, not in the drawin phase. If I was, it would be a whole different kind of block and I would be a lot more stressed and a lot less frustrated than I currently is. You see, the problem is not that the page isn't there. It's there, and I will have the coloring done by midnight, most likely. No, the problem is that the page SUCKS. I drew it way back in Viborg, but because I was primarily focused on getting a buttload of pages done for the buffer, I didn't think so much about the dialogue... and that is how I left my current self with a page of stilted, unnatural storytelling centered around a joke that JUST DOESN'T WORK. "%#"¤#"¤%"!!! The whole thing needs a serious dialogue overhaul, and I just can't seem to do that right now. Damnit.

Hopefully, this whole thing will look better in the morning so I can finish it up tomorrow - I'll pretty much have to because I'm leaving for Greece the day after tomorrow (third and last trip of this holiday). And yes, that means no update next monday, but I'll try to at least get a filler sketch done before I go south. ^_^ Ahh... actually warm weather. It's been mostly greya nd rainy here, as is the norm for danish summers, and London... well, it's LONDON, for crépe's sake! It is, quite possibly, the only inhabitable place on earth to have worse summers than Scandinavia.

...

...on a completely unrelated tangent, working in ballpoint pen is surprisingly satisfying. Don't worry, I won't suddenly start doing the main comic in it, but it might be worth some experimentation.

...

These things are getting more and more incomprehensible, aren't they?

Well...

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:56:00 +0000

...that was more like 'late next week' than 'early this week', wasn't it? *Checks date* Uhm, yes it was.

Sorry for not keeping you informed - my bad excuses for this are that a) I was staying at a friend's place doing early cosplay work and thus was busy most of the time (I was working full-time while I was there, as well), and b) I'm simply sick and tired of making excuses and a apologies. Yeah, you guys deserve to know what's going on, but the prospect of typing up yet another blog post that basically amounts to 'comic delayed due to lazy' is just not very inviting. -_-; Sorry. I'll swallow my pride earlier next time.

When that is said... well, I hope people can guess that this is a pretty important page. *^_^* 'Nuff said.

Oh, and... Here I go again: Next week is going to be late. >.< (Can you see why I'm tired of writing this yet?) I have it drawn and inked, but not yet colored, and since I'm leaving for a one-week trip to London without my laptop tomorrow, I won't be able to finish it up before late next week (or later, given that it's me we're talking about). It sucks, but now you know, and as a TV show I've never actually watched would put it, knowing is half the battle.

Meanwhile, by all means check out Crossoverlord, the crossover comic I'm doing (or rather, paricipating in when Al makes sure I remember to) with the brilliant creators of Mindmistress, Dasien, Lightbringer and Indefensible Positions (no links, because the blog screws them up - all comics can be accessed from the Crossoverlord page, though, which is available through the link situated just below today's comic *winkwinknudgenudge*.) 'My' pages are currently being uploaded, so even if this page is skimpy on the updates, you can still get your weekly bug-girl action by checking out Crossoverlord.

...

Did I mention Crossoverlord?

There is an update

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 22:06:00 +0000

Happy now? ^_~

Celebrating 4 Years of Bug-chick & Friends

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:43:00 +0000

...wait, it's been FOUR YEARS? No way! If that was the case, I'd had to have been... (ack!) 16 years old when I started this thing!

*checks calender*

...Okay, I WAS 16 years old when I started this thing. Damnit.

...

So, four years of A.N.T? Well, I hope you'll agree with me that we've moved SOMEWHERE, if not as far as I'd expected us to have back when I was... y'know... 16 years old. Art-wise, I'd definitely say I've improved, and though that is a more subjective field, I believe my writing has become, if not better, then at least more focused and planned than it was four years ago. But you're not really interested in that. You just want to know when the next comic comes out.

And to that, I say: june 23rd, aka this Monday. It's the third time I post that, but repeating things thrice is never bad.

Gah, I suck at writing long-winded nostalgic blog posts in the middle of the night. This one sounded so.. grand in my head, and yet ended up this... well, not-grand on the screen. I'll try and write something better tomorrow when I'm less impossibly tired and more awake.

...

By the way, that picture is 100% hand-made (as you could probably tell from that lame background). No computers - only lightbox, xerox, cut-and-paste and markers. Though I suppose the xerox thing should technically count against the hand-made score...

Now broadcasting from home!

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:30:00 +0000

(But still not in updating condition, damn it)

Greetings, imaginary and astonishingly corporeal people of the interwebs! I've got some good news, and I've got some bad news. Normally, in a situation like this, you'd ask the other party if they want the good news or the bad news first, but since this is a blog post and thusly a very much single-directional way of communicating with many recipients, I'll just give you the news in the order that makes the most sense. Okay?

Good news first: I'm online again! Yay yay yay yay! And there was much rejoicing.

...okay, so maybe that's not really that spectacular a news-piece, considering that the very fact that this post is posted at all, is, in it self, pretty solid proof that I'm online. So what this really means is that I'm online on my OWN computer - in other works, it's back from the repair shop and in actual working condition! Yay! ...and that leads us to the BAD news. Y'see, repairing my computer apparently meant 'replacing the whole damn hard drive' to the people in the shop, which means that I've lost not just everything I've done for the comic since I last made a backup in December (not that bad, it's only two pages or so and I still have the originals) and every plotting and website file ever written (worse), but also Paint Shop Pro (worst). Oh, sure, I still have the CD, but it's stored in my everthing-computery box back in Copenhagen, so I can't reinstall before I get home, which means not coloring or even lettering before June the 16th, at the earliest. (That's a bit of good news, though - it's less than two weeks 'till I get home, so the wait shouldn't be unbearable). And more good news: I have a buffer! Yes, seriously. It's not the biggest buffer in the world, but it's the biggest I've had since I started this damn thing, and I intend to expand it before I finally start updating again so you can be sure of updates for the future. Good, right? Of course, due to the PSP thing, it's a B/W buffer, so I'll still have to color in 'real time', but it still beats the crap out of rushing the whole process every weekend.

So, I take it you want to know when to finally expect new updates? Well, I'll be leaving Viborg on June 15th, and there's no way I can finish a whole page the same evening I move home (especially not now that I've lost all my color swatches and have to find them all again in old comics), and I want to stick with the Monday schedule, so... does Monday June 23rd sound good to you? We'll have passed the 4th anniversary by then (it's June 20th, if that interests anyone), but considering how little I've been updating for the last year, I'd say skip the past and focus on the future. I want A.N.T's 5th anniversary to be a real achievement to celebrate. (You're still very welcome to send in stuff for this anniversary, though... ^_~ I made a little thing myself, too.)

And now to something completely different: This weekend, I went to Denmark's only comics convention, Komiks.dk, and had an absolutely fabulous time! Thanks for a great weekend and greetings to Frieddeer, Skyen, Gwennafran, Mona (ha! I still remember your name... what was your internet handle, again?), Paranoid, Turi (sorry I didn't have time to hang around more -but Cap WAS right), Usk, the people from school (esp. Belinda, Karen, Tanja and Frederikke) and the billions of people whose names I'm a real dick to forget so quickly, but nonetheless HAVE forgotten. I need one of those 'my best friends'-books 5th graders have, and I need EVERYONE I meet to write in it. And give me photos. In and out of cosplay. -_-;
Despite my pathetic people-memory, it WAS a great time - we went there on a SCHOOL TRIP, believe it or not (in this aspect, drawing school pwns every other conceivable type of school), but there was no planned programme, so I could do all of the autograph-hunting I wanted (read: autographs from everyone I'd heard about) - I got Jean-Claude Meziers to draw Laureline, I got Alessandro Barbucci to draw Elyon, AND I got the god himself, Don Rosa, to sign that particular story of his I read so many times as a kid that half of the pages are falling out of the mag and the cover has been taped together. Yes, good times. (Also got Kurt Busiek and my second Peter Madsen.) Saw a few panels and interviews as well, though the ones I REALLY wanted to see had either started when we arrived or didn't start before after our bus back to Viborg left. Oh well, at least that means the arrangers had made a program interesting enough to make me feel bad about missing some of it - and that is an awesome feat in itself. Kudos to those guys. ^_^

... but yes, this ALSO means I was actually home this weekend, and I forgot to pick up PSP. I suck infinitely. -_-;;; I think I'll just end this post now and go bury my head in shame.

News from the Library!

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:23:00 +0000

... or rather, contentless chatter from the library. Because there are no news. At least not about the computer situation. Nothing. Zilch, zip, nada. And it's been in that repairshop for close to a month now. Bah. I'm starting to worry that I might be done here before my computer ois. And does that mean I'll have to take an extra trip to Viborg to pick it up in August?

So, wanna talk about the weather? Because that's something that has been splendid since last time! (Of course, that means that I've been sick for a week. Because nothing is ever really that splendid. -_-; ) I'm still working on the buffer, though it's been going slowly due to the illness and a school project I finished today (well, a drawing school project, but still a project), and...

Uhm...

... There's really nothing to say. Strange, really. I suppose being offline for so long does that to you. Y'know - no heated debates over impossibly geeky subjects, no constantly updating newspages and debates, no encyclopedias of worthless knowledge to plow through, only well-written books, plenty of time to draw, silence...

...Man, I miss the internet.

....

A shimmering ray of hope?

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:23:00 +0000

Yes, I'm back at the library. This is just a short note to inform you that my computer is now in the repair shop (yes, that's right. The PHONE store has a computer repair shop. Who'd have thought?), and has been there for about two weeks now, and while that doesn't say anything about when I'll get it back, at least they didn't just laug´h at me and tell me to buy a new.

So that's a good thing.

Also, I'm currently on a roll, creativity-wise (okay, so more plotting-wise than drawing-wise - if I had to choose, I'd definately be a comic writer over an artist): the rest of Episode 4 has been fully scripted (20 pages to go - ack!), Episode 5 has been laid out (so it DOESN't end up 44 pages long), and, most importantly, pages 107 and most of 108 have been drawn and inked. And considering that I started friday, I think that's quite good. ^_^;

And now: Bufferbuilding yay!

God-Freakin'-Screaming-Blastin'-DAMNIT!

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:54:00 +0000

Yes, something is seriously wrong. And no, it has nothing to do with the 'missing' page (that must have been the longest April's Fool's in the history of webcomics)

For reasons I am soon to explain, I'll do this as quickly as I can, so here goes: I am currently without internet. In fact, I am currently without a computer in a condition that enables it to do more than start, tell me it can't start because it's missing a system file, and rejecting all the boot discs I give it to repair said system file. Also, I don't know when the heck I WILL have a computer in working order, not to mention internet access, again.
What complicates the matter furter is of course that I'm stuck here in Viborg, where I have a) no access to my mother's computer so I can go online and figure out what to do, b) not bought the computer and c) am not storing the receipt I got when I bought it in Copenhagen. Well, at least there IS a store from the same chain I bought it from here, so once my mom sends me the receipt in snailmail, I'll at least be able to take it down to tehm and scream at them until they take it to repair (it's a phone store, though, so I don't really expect them to be able to do anything else than give me a new one - I bought it less than two years ago, so it should still be covered by the varranty. Or else, they die. Damnit, if I can't get it replaced, it'll be another six months before I can afford a new computer.)

So, now that we have established that I'm stuck in a deep, dark pit of computer-withdrawal, how am I writing this? Well, seeing as I have only been able to borrow my friends' computers for about five minutes at a time, that there is no student internet access at my school (if you don't bring your own laptop, that is), and that, as far as I know, there are no internet cafés in this twon, I've had to do it in the oldfashioned way. Yes, I'm borrowing a computer at the library. With pre-registry of timeslots, no scanning, no PSP, and a maximum of one hour per day. At least it's free. -_-;

But what about the comic? I suppose none of you will be surprised to hear that I won't be posting anything until I have a computer again (well, unless you expect me to do it by magic, in which case I'll have to disappoint you), but since I for once don't have a bunch of internet-related things to distract me, I'll try and use the sudden amount of spare time in my life to make a buffer. I hope it'll be a small one - but if I have to buy a new computer, you can at least be assured that I'll have a full chapter in the buffer when I come back. <_<

So, that's pretty much it - if any of you have something urgent to tell me, email FriedDeer, and she'll probably tell me earlier than I would've seen it myself (sorry for using you as a mail service, FD - I hope it's allright. -_-) I'll try to get online at least once a week, too, but don't expect me to do a lot - an hour is very little time. >.<

Which reminds me that I only have 35 minutes left of THIS hour, and plenty of other things to do, so this'll be all for now. Again, sorry for this crap. I hope it'll work out soon...

WOW!

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:16:00 +0000

HOLY SHI-! Well, that was a bit of a surprise, wasn't it? Come on, admit it - hell, if I hadn't been the one writing and drawing this page, I would never have seen it coming either. I mean, who would've thought that Lisa's parents were keeping something like that in their lab? Or that those two would hook up? Or that that was what Io had been alluding to since the beginning of Episode Three? Or that Emme would confide her secret to Lisa, of all people? Or, for that matter, that Emme had been hiding that all this time? Not me, at least. (But go ahead and try to prove me that you'd guessed that Kin was really Pink Flash way back in Episode One.) It's pages like this one that make writing comics fun. ^_^ Sorry for letting you all wait an extra day for this page, but I hope the revelations make up for that. And if they don't, I at least hope the art does - after all, the reason I didn't post a notice to say that the page was going to be late was simply that I was too busy finishing all those metallic highlights and energy beams to even get online! ... Okay, I was slacking a bit, too - but they ARE impressive, aren't they? But one thing is the art and the revelations: with all this new information comes even more new questions. Will Lisa kill Emme to save the world? What happened to Pinkys ferrabbit back in Japan? Will Sanus learn to eat cheese? Well, I'm not telling (at least not now), so how about you try and figure it out for yourself? ^_~ If anyone can guess before it's explained in the comic, I promise I'll cosplay as Pinky at the next J-popcon. Because if anyone can figure those things out, that will be so humiliating for my skills as a writer that I might as well dress in pink and blondes for a whole weekend... Gah, I need sleep now. It's already April... -_-

It's been Easter...

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 19:51:00 +0000

...and there you have the reason why I haven't been around. Yeah, simple as that.

...okay, so it's a little more complicated in real life. The story goes like this: As anyone living in a pseudo-Christian country such as mine should know, this week is the week of Easter, and while we non-Christians could normally give a dead rat about that, it happens to be that the holidays of majority religions (or, in the case of Denmark well-it-used-to-be-pretty-big-so-let's-just-say-that-it's-still-a-majority-even-though-pretty-few-people-actually-believe-in-it-religions) are also, usually, national holidays. Which means days off. Which means a much welcome chance for me to go home and spend some quality time with friends and family I've been missing like crazy for the last three months.

And that means that there are no comics, because when I finally have the chance, I prefer to actually DO stuff with my friends and family rather than just sit here and draw stuff I could just as well draw in Viborg. I think that explains it better. ^_~

I really wanted to post about this before leaving, and possibly put up another Badly Drawn, but things got ahead of me. Or rather, deadlines for applications to the Animation School my Art School is part of got ahead of me. Sure, I'm not applying, but most of my friends in Viborg are, and I spent most of last week helping them finishing their portfolios (quick tip for anyone ever making a portfolio for anything: Have it finished AT least three days before the deadline. Scanning and arranging 'till 3AM because the deadline is the next day is no fun.) It came to the point where I had to lend out my computer and scanner for two full days, which effectively stopped any plans I had about getting a filler, not to mention a page, done, and once I had it back, I was home and had other things on my mind than posting here. Sorry about that. -_- But, at least, now you know. And, as a screechingly US-patriotic cartoon I never watched as a kid puts it, knowing is half the battle.

As for the future, I'm actually going back home again as early as next weekend because my male cousin (I think I've been ranting about it before, but it really does disturb me that the English language makes no distinction between cousins-who-are-boys and cousins-who-are-girls, especially since the word 'cousin' is almost identical to the Danish term for female cousin, of whom I have none) is turning 18 and for some reason didn't feel like doing it THIS weekend, so I have to go back four days after leaving. In fact, I think the extra journey costs me MORE than the value of the lessons I would miss if I just stayed here for those four days, but well, the value of those lessons can't really be measured in money. Too bad. Realistically speaking, three afternoons (I'll be back in Viborg late Monday night and leaving again Friday afternoon, so it's really only three afternoons there) is not enough time for me to make a comic, so the next update is currently scheduled for MONDAY MARCH 31st. If possible, I'll put up some fillers and Badly Drawns until then, but there is a pretty big possibility that my mom will want to borrow my scanner next week (it's the only scanner in the house), so I might not actually be able to put anything up. Unless I decide to do some Badly Drawns on the computer. Well, they ARE supposed to look like ass...

I'll get back to you once I know whether or not I'll have a scanner for that week. Until then: Have fun, and happy Easter for - both for those who believe in God and those who believe in chocolate eggs.

The debut of Badly Drawn Lisa

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 23:45:00 +0000

Wow! Would you believe that I didn't even use an eraser when I made today's update?!? Isn't that amzing art skills right there?
...

So, yeah, I didn't get today's update ready in time. There's not even a real reason - I just didn't get it done. -_-; BUT, instead of giving you nothing, I decided to swap this week's update with the one that was really supposed to go up on next Monday, when I'm going to be busy with the hard task of having an Easter break (that means you'll get regular update next week, peeps)

...yeah, the art is ugly as hell. But then again, that is sort of the point, isn't it? At least this way I can give you something resembling an update when I'm too busy being home/slacking/having a life to actually draw. ^_^; Also, I might be making more of these, so if you have a question you'd like answered by any of the characters, send it to Hamsterant@gmail.com. *hinthint*

And, once again, it's past my bedtime. Time to go sleep so I'll be fresh to work on page 107 tomorrow. ^_^;

Finally!

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:15:00 +0000

...I'm never shading Mariam's dress again. >_<

And now: To bed (can't believe I ended up pushing this until after my bedtime when I had the whole afternoon to do it in...)

Iiiiiiiiiit's...

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 23:20:00 +0000

HopelesslyBelatedShrovetideFanartThatIActuallyGotInTimeForShrovetideButNeglectedBecauseIWasMentallyAbsentAndSuckyButNowItGoesUpBecauseIHaven'tColoredPage106YetAndIReallyOweTheArtistToPutItUpBecauseItRules-time!!!

In other, less breathless words: I'm late on the page. Well, I'm me, what did you expect? I'm not VERY late, though - it's drawn and inked and would probably have been colored as well if I hadn't remembered at the nick of time that I actually HAD a specimen of the rare species known as homework this week. And that that homework-specimen was to draw a dice. Yes. A dice. IN DETAIL. So, I spent this evening on dice instead of Lisa. Yes, it hurt.

So, because of this, the real page is delayed. It will hopefully be up by tomorrow evening, depending on what I'll be doing after school tomorrow. As said last week, though, I'm PRESENT, and therefore you get not a blank page, not a lousy excuse on the blog (well, you get that too), but an actual FILLER!

And there was much rejoicing.

Seriously, though, this a filler I'm very, very happy to have received and more than a little shameful not to have put up earlier. You see, Shrovetide (y'know, that vaguely Halloween-esque holiday that is apparently celebrated only one place on the internet: in A.N.T fanart) was four weeks ago, and it was back then that I received this lovely piece from CrimsonCat. Four weeks ago, however, was also the deep pit of my non-updating streak of early 2008, and the very depts of my likewise early-2008 absence. So, the main reason this picture was not posted early is the simple one that, when I received it, I was somewhere else entirely mentally and couldn't even consider such a revolutionary idea as actually updating. (The secondary reason for the non-posting of thsi image earlier? By early February, I hadn't updated for over a month, and the last update had been a holiday filler. Breaking the silence with ANOTHER holiday filler? Not good webcomicmaking. At all.)

Anyway, here it is. Enjoy it for now, and I'll hurry up to replace it with something inferior from my own hand! <3

...

Well, after I've slept, that is.

Drawing Naked Dudes for Fun and Profit

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:00:00 +0000

Newsflash: Ida lives.

Really. And so does the comic, after massive CPR. The doctors are positive on it.

...

So, yes, I'm here. Of course, I've been here all the time, if we take 'here' to mean 'in front of this computer' (alternatively, it could be stated that as of writing this, I'm in the train from Viborg to Copenhagen, wagon 12, seat 76, on my ass - but in that case, I've definitely not been here all the time). As I told you eons ago when I last updated, though, the wider, less-time-specific definition of 'here' have changed since I stopped updating, though - in other words, I've moved to Viborg. And I think most of you can already guess that that MIGHT have something to do with the lack of updates.

For those who don't know, Viborg is the kind of place that makes you realize the difference between 'city' and 'town'. Copenhagen is a city. Viborg is a town (even though the locals would probably object to me calling it that. It IS, though - any place where the only cinema around is too small to be playing 'Sweeney Todd' is.) Coming from Copenhagen, which, although it admittedly isn't really that big, at least acts like it is, Viborg is a major difference. Sure, it could be MUCH more provincial, but the change of climate was still impressive. Call me an arrogant city mouse, but I like big cities. A lot. There's a REASON Superman moved from Smallville to Metropolis, and that reason is that smalltowns just don't mesh well with superheroes. Yes.

(Before the, doubtlessly huge, portion of remaining readers who live in small towns skin me alive for the above paragraph, allow me to say that 80% of my hostility towards Viborg most certainly comes from the simple fact that it just isn't HOME. I would probably feel exactly the same way about living 6 months in Berlin or London, except probably MORE bitter, since, between paying for housing, food and school fees, I would have no money left to go to the movies or buy stuff. At least in Viborg, there are no interesting shops to tempt me. ^_^; And on the plus side, at least Viborg is only 600 km away from home - if it weren't for insane train fares, I could technically come home every weekend.)

But I didn't come to Viborg to shop anyway, I came for the Drawing School. And holy crap, is that a good school! Sure, it's taxing as hell, but that was what I signed up for, and the progress you can see yourself and your classmates make completely makes up for the sweat and tears (no, I'm not planning to bleed on anyone's drawings.) Sadly, I don't think any of that progress shines through in the comic above - as far as I can tell, it's as crappy as they usually are, even though this one is a actually a redraw of a sketch I've had lying around since December. That sketch WAS extraordinarily crappy, though (part of the reason why I never inked it), so that might not say much about my new skills. Perhaps I should post a naked dude? (In that case, do you guys expect the parts a Ken doll so severely lacks to be censored? Or did this comic lose all pretensions of 'family friendliness' with the entomophile lesbian?) Anyways, as said, the school is GREAT. It's a very different form of learning (I still keep wanting my teachers to 'just frickin' explain it', but that's not how one learns to draw) and using your brain, but the teachers are great, the classmates are great, and the school in general is just great. Also, we don't get homework, which leaves me plenty of time to... cook, clean and buy groceries. -_-; No, I don't enjoy moving away from home much. Sure, you have the luxury of being able to sit up 'till 3 AM every night and listen to Nana Mizuki at the highest volume on your ghettoblaster (thus ruining every chance you would have of being mentally present in school the next day) without anyone telling you to use your brain and get to bed - but, seriously, the cooking alone, the need to keep track of EVERYTHING or suddenly be out of toilet paper, and the evenings spent alone (my college has no communal areas, so except on weekends, you rarely see anyone after 8 PM) just aren't worth it. I HAVE earned a great respect for my mother, though - one I will, from this summer on, exercise by once again preying on her goodwill... er, live at home. Yeah. No, the level of maturity in this one is not astonishing.

...

Oh, right, the drawing naked men part? Well, that is what we do most of the time. CrimsonCat was right - and except for one of them, who looks suspiciously like naked Santa, they ARE the athletic, generally-considered-attractive type, which just makes her MORE right. Scary.
There are basically two types of classes (though the same teacher teaches both - for more specialized classes, we have guest teachers), croquis and longstudies. Croquis is, well, croquis (drawing a model posing for between 15 seconds and 5 minutes, resulting in massive amounts of generally crappy-looking but educational drawings, for the uninitiated) and longstudies are, as the name implies, drawings (typically of models, but they can be objects or body parts as well) which we have a delightfully long time to finish and generally make un-crappy. You'd never guess what class I like the best. As for specialized classes, I've so far had Character Design (very animation-centered, since the students who want to go on to animation school are finishing their portfolios these weeks), Sketching (very useful and insanely difficult when you're as slow-handed as I am), and managed to be sick all the way through Perspective (which I like to believe is the reason my backgrounds STILL suck). There will probably be more of them later, but right now, we're back to the naked men.

Seriously, we've had ONE woman. Out of five models.

I think the above paragraphs sum up pretty well that this has been a pretty eventful period of my life - and THAT is why I haven't been here at all for so long. Not the actual busyness (when that's the case, I can at least post here), but the whole experience of being uprooted and having to settle in a situation where the only major thing that hasn't changed is in fact - this comic. Sure, the general tiredness and the fact that I actually HAVE managed to be social and make new friends here (who, of course, bring with them social activities and other such unholy thieves of all-important Internet Time) has been tearing at my comicmaking energy and time, but the main reason remains that my mind was simply anywhere but here for the last seven weeks. I deeply apologize to those who have been emailing me or tried to contact me on the tagboard, and only gotten late, hastily-made answers, not to mention those who haven't got any answer at all. You're awesome, and I suck. (And on that note - if you have something you want me to hear, and I haven't been listening, please just email me - I'm present now). On the plus side, well, look above. That's a comic. And that means that I'm not absent any more. I don't know exactly how often I can do regular updates for the next 16 weeks, but I WILL be present. And when I can't do a comic, I will do something else. In fact, I have a filler-concept I've been wanting to try out for quite a while... Even if non-Skyen filler is breaking traditions here. If nothing else, expect a naked dude with an apology.

Here's your comic. I'm glad to be back. ^_^

...

(Yes, I know certain naturists and people who make it their hobby to fuss over grammatical errors will object to the use of the word 'naked' in the headline. They are naked, though. The dudes, that is.)

Happy New Year (and moving)

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 15:21:00 +0000

To start out: Happy New Year to all of you! Yes, we're quite a few days into the new year, but if you're anything like me, you're probably still struggling to remember that the last cipher of the year has changed (I'm pretty good at signing my stuff with the wrong year), so... happy by-now-everyone-should-have-noticed-that-it's-a-New-Year!

I'm currently busy trying to relocate my entire life to the other end of the country, and has been since the actual New Year's, so that's why I didn't go here to wish you happy New Year earlier. Bad Ida. Well, at least the packing is close to finished - I'm moving tomorrow, and my grandfather (one of the only three people in my entire family with a driving license) insisted that we had to leave at some god damned early time in the morning JUST IN CASE there is some obstacle on the way, so I'd be in deep trouble if I WASN'T close to finished. The obstacle thing doesn't come completely out of thin air, though - the weather here is horribly cold and windy at the moment, even indoors in (of course, it's the coldest in the room I'm packing in - yesterday, I could place a soda in the window, and it would stay refrigerator-cold!) I really hope the room I'm moving into will have insulation. -_-

So, if I'm busy packing, why am I taking time off from the packing to write this? Because I don't know if I'd be able to write for the next week or so if I didn't do it now. Y'see, for some reason, my room isn't going to be ready to move into until the 15th, so for the first week I spend over there, I'm going to live in a temporary room at the school, and I don't know if I'll have internet there. (There IS internet in my 'real' room, though, no worries.) Oh, and it's the first week, so I just MIGHT have to spend some time on social activities... ^_~

Okay, that's all for now. There are a couple tonnes of stuff waiting for me to stuff it into boxes, so I'd better get going.

See you in Viborg!

So, NOW I know what I should've asked for for Christmas...

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 22:31:00 +0000

...a bleed-free drawing pad. And here I went, using my wishes on silly things like towels and cooking utensils. God, I hope this is the only time I'll ever have to spend my Christmas wishes on cooking utensils. Damn you, moving away from home for a limited amount of time! >_<

...wait, that wasn't the point of this post at all.

The point was more along the lines of something like: Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah (no, I do not know how to spell that one), Cool Kwanza, Heavenly Hajj (no, I don't know how to spell that one either), Yurilicious... no, wait... erm... Nice Yule (next time you start a holiday, please name it something that can be alliterated with something other than yuri, please?) and Splendid Secular-break-in-winter-that-really-means-nothing-to-you-but-is-nice-because-days-off-from-work-are-always-welcome. Phew. That should have everyone covered. What is it with all these holidays at the same time, anyways? (Well, at least the fact that they are spread all over these few weeks enables me to use them to draw attention away from the fact that this drawing should really have been up yesterday, if not the day before. Except I just pointed attention AT that fact. Oh crap.)

Since you're my readers, you're pretty clever (and I'm saying that not from an egoist viewpoint of MY readers = as clever as ME, but from the experience of three and a half years with you, your spot-on analysis es and the nagging feeling that all my carefully crafted mysteries will be pulled apart by you years before their time because you're simply a good deal smarter than I am), and so, you've probably found out that there will be no regular update this week. Okay, so one doesn't have to be particularly clever to figure that one out, especially not considering the Universal Law of Webcomics's statement that "Filler = No Update" (and "Almost Missed Filler = Of Course There's No Update You Dumbass" - this filler is here primarily because I didn't want to break just about the only unbroken tradition set by this comic: we've had a Christmas filler every year, and we're damn sure going to continue to have that!), there will be no comic this week. And if you didn't make it through the jumbled mess of lousy parabombing that was the last sentence, I'll just repeat that: There will be no comic this week. Not that it's much of a surprise, though, considering that there have hardly been any comic for the last six months. Sigh.

But, and there is always a but (but this is a positive but): Next year will be differnet. Oh yeah, next year will be differnet. Why, you ask? Because I've made it my New Year's resolution to update this thing. And as we all know, New Year's resolutions NEVER fail.

...

Seriously though, at least the first few updates of next year should be on schedule. I haven't made up my mind about next week yet - technically, Monday is not the first day of the new year but the last of the old, so my resolution will not come into effect until the week after that, so... We'll see. It will most liekly depend entirely on how big my buffer will be by then. ^_~

Well, that was all for now. Merry (belated) multitude of winter holidays, and happy (not belated) New Year!

The much-needed 'WTF is Ida doing"-post

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 22:42:00 +0000

As anyone who has been following this website should know, I've been very absent for the last few weeks. And if you haven't noticed my absence, well, that probably means that you've given up on the comic and won't be reading this anyway, so I'm not going to speak to you. Deal with it.

So, now that we've established that I've been absent, I suppose the time has come to explain why I've been absent. Since I'm working by the hypothetical idea that there are still some (very faithful and AWESOME) readers out there to whom I can write this, let's just imagine that said (very faithful and AWESOME) readers will now point out the thing I am about to write. I can do this, of course, because the readers are hypothetical. These hypothetical readers will now say: "but Ida, haven't you been absent because you've been working all the time?" (that is, if they're nice readers; a more realistic quote would probably be "get drawing, you lazy scumbag!" but since they're my hypothetical readers, I decide what they get to call me. And "scumbag" is not one of the allowed epithets.) To that question, my answer would be this: "Yes, I have been working all the time, but what I haven't told you is why I've been working." And really, my readers should know me well enough to know that I wouldn't be working full-time (and in a crappy super, even) if I didn't have a mighty good reason not just to slack off and draw all the time. That mighty good reason is this: For the last 5 months, I've been working to save up money to take this half-year course. "Fair enough (except for the lack of comic, of course)" my hypothetical readers might say, but then why haven't you told us anything about it before? Well, that's where it gets embarrassing. I would probably blush, and then I'd say something more or less identical to this: "Uhm... well... That's because there is an entrance exam and a limited number of openings in the course, so only the best applicants get to go there. In other words, I didn't want to say that I was going there, because I didn't know if (or, in fact, believe that) I would make it there, and I didn't want to end up bragging high and low about going there and then ending up flunking the exam." "So", my hypothetical readers would ask, "why are you telling us about it now". To this, I would turn bright red and reply: "because the exam was a month ago and I just found out that I BLOODY MADE IT!!!"

Hypothetically, this is where my readers would break into unstoppable applause. More realistically, they'd probably ask where the next 5 months's comics will come from.

So, now you know. Or rather, you don't know very much, because I spent so many words saying not very much at all above. Okay, enough with the hypothetical, here's the hard and cold facts: (this is, in fact, the only part of this post that you really need to read, but most likely, you've already read everything above it, so this information will not come in handy at all. Too bad.)

On January 7th, I will enroll into The Animation Workshop's Drawing Academy, a 20-week intensive course teaching, well, drawing. When I finish it on June 13th, my drawing skills will hopefully be at least 3,000x the level they are at now, but hopefully more, since 3,000xcrappy isn't very good. This course is something I've been wanting to do since my first year of High School, and the school (which is, coincidentally, the only Animation College in Denmark) is very close yo being the coolest place on earth, so this is more or less a dream come true. It is, however, breathtakingly expensive, because our lovely Ministry of Education apparently doesn't believe art to be something worth much of anything, so that's why I've been working so hard to get enough money. I'm very close to my goal by now. (And if you were wondering what I've working with now that the job at the goddamn super is over: I'm a substitute mailman, helping out at various post offices. It's actually a really good job - the pay is better than in the super, I get exercise, I won't have to talk to grumpy customers, I can listen to music while I work, and since I get a new route every day, it never gets truly repetitive. It can, however, be pretty tiring, so I've had plenty of afternoons where I didn't have any energy left when I got home. And yes, that IS affecting the comic.)
So, there you have half of why I'm busy doing everything else than the comic currently. The other half of that is that the school is located in the town of Viborg, which, for those who've never heard of it before, is in the other end of the country from Copenhagen. Which means I'll have to move away from home. Which again means that in the less than a month I have left here, I have to finish up most of the loose ends I have dangling around, say goodbye to all the people I won't be seeing until summer, and, most work-heavy, actually prepare to move. Which in a weird twist of nonsense has come to mean that I'm currently entangled in a massive project to shine up the room that I will not be living in for the next six months. The world is a weird place.

So, and now we're finally reaching the part that's directly relevant to you people, hypothetical and not: What about the comic? I'll be absolutely honest and say that I simply don't know. Oh, sure I want to do it, but we all know how little my wanting to do the comic has to do with my actually making it. The major obstacles I can see to future updates are simply that I will probably be very busy while I'm at the school, and since what I will be busy with will be drawing, there is also a not insignificant chance that I will be sick and tired of drawing when I finally have the time. Oh, and there is the possibility of me developing an all-encompassing, hectic and popularity-filled social life that will take all my time away from drawing over there, but since it's me, I severely doubt that that'll happen. On the plus side, me going away from home will mean a lot more free time, since I won't have to do 'weekend projects' with my mother (the dreaded bane of my weekends, normally revolves around cleaning, tidying or IKEA), I suppose I won't have homework, and *sob* my friends are in the other end of the country, so our sleepovers will probably become a great deal more sparse. There is also the possibility that drawing all the time will make me more creative (especially since the course focuses mainly on life drawing; I'll probably develop at least semi-painful urges to do manga artwork on a regular basis) and that doing the comic will be a lot easier once I (hopefully) improve my drawing speed. That, and I really want to do this thing.

And now I want to sleep.

Blockically Late

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 15:42:00 +0000

I'm late.

Really, really, obnoxiously cathastrophically late. And why?

Well, first there was work. Wait, that's not true. First, there was IKEA, where I spent all of my free time friday trying to buys stuff that would help make my room just a microscopically less cluttered and messy. I think it worked. Then, there was work - once again, I worked on Saturday, and once again, I was pretty damn tired when I finally got home. But mostly, there was writer's block. Yes. Writer's. I think that shows how far I currently am in the making of this comic.

Of course, pinpointing the reason for a writer's block is pretty much impossible (otherwise, I suppose it would be a LOT easier to cure), but part of there reason why I just can't seem to script page 105 is, I believe, that it marks the beginning of a scene that I've never really gotten the grip on. The gym scene? I've had that planned since years ago. The scene after this one? The outline is there, only need to fill in the detail. Every termite scene EVER? I could write those with my hands tied. However, this particular scene... Well, I know where it ends, I know what the high point of it should be, and I know it's important to the overall plot, but I have NO clue how to begin it or how to plot it out in logically seperated pages, preferrably with at leas one joke each. Damn it.

Therefore, I don't know when the page will be up. Oh, it will be up - I don't have homework anymore, so I can make comics on weekdays as easily as I can make them in the weekend - but I can't say when.

Maybe I should make another LOLcharacter to get the creative juices flowing...?

This IS a finished comic

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:16:00 +0000

Yes.

That title probably says it.

I need sleep.

This is not a finished comic

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:26:00 +0000

...as anyone with half an eye should be able to see, really.

It is, however, close enough to done to be at least slightly viewable, yet not close enough to done to be realistically finished tonight without me skipping sleep altogether (and insanely tired Ida does NOT make good shading), so what I decided to do was this: You get the slightly-crappy-but-there update right now, I go to bed and work and choir and then I go home and upgrade it to the slightly-less-crappier-and-done update. Which is basically just this comic but with shading. OK?

...

...Also, I think I actually managed to make that dress awful in a way that ISN'T currently sweeping the northern european fashion scene. Maybe. Damn, current fashion is ugle.

Filler-accompanying explanation:

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:06:00 +0000

There are two things to say about this filler (okay, so technically, I could probably say a lot more, but I'm supposed to have gone to bed an hour ago, so I'm a bit too tired to do so. Bear with me).

Number one: There IS a comic coming, and it is coming soon, most likely tomorrow evening. Really. It's inked and scanned and everything, it just needs the computer-finishing done. And the reason for this is actually quite simple and straightforward, as I see it: I worked on Saturday. Which means that my weekend was one day shorter than weekends traditionally are. Which in turn means that I had one day less to make the comic in, since the idea that A.N.T is something I do on weekends and on weekends ONLY has apparently ingrained itself into the deeper part of my brain after three years of High School. So, practically: I sleep now, then I go to work, and then I finish the comic tomorrow. Deal?

(This reminds me that, as far as I know, I haven't yet told you quite what I wok with these days, considering that the job at the goddamn super is thankfully over and done with. Expect as vaguely real life-ish post soon.)

And thing-to-say-about-this-filler number two: It's not really yurilicious. In fact, it has nothing resembling yuri in it. Well, unless you consider two or more girls appearing on the same page of the same comic yuri, in which case I suppose it is. In that case, though, you are probably a slightly overzealous shipper. Just sayin'.

I think that was it?

...

Yup, that was it.