Binary Souls / Other Dimensions

Yesterday I drove up to Philly to hang out with my friend Rachel.  I met her a handful of years ago on the internet via her blog. Since she was such a great tour guide while we were in Osaka, I thought it would be fun to meet up with her while she was in Philly.  She hadn’t been to Eastern State yet and I decided to give her my version of the tour.

I left Virginia at about 11am on Thursday and it took me four hours to get to Philly when it really should have taken three.  Due to the amount of construction on various spots of 95 and some crappy traffic in the major cities, it took longer than I expected.  I ended up making it to my final destination at about 3pm but it gave us enough time to check out the wonders of urban decay.  While this place is in the middle of the city itself.  Would that make it rural decay? I suppose it wouldn’t but the prison has been at this site for well over one hundred years.

Kate and I went to Eastern State about a year ago but there were a few new sections set up that were not there a year ago. They now have some cameras set up in the old guard towers and you can control them so that you can survey the entire area.  The newly restored synagogue was a bit more interesting, though.  In the picture to the left, you can see the Star of David which was actually on that door at one time.

All in all, my short trip to Philly was awesome.  It was great to hang out with Rachel and her friends and it was probably good that I got away from DC a bit.  I tend to not leave the house for days at a time and I get a little stir crazy from time to time.  Trips like this certainly do take the edge off.  When I got home today around noon, I realized I was just way too tired to work on a comic.  It’s amazing how much it drains you to be in a car for about 8 hours of the course of a day.  I’ll get back to work on things on Monday.

Hitting my 400th comic yesterday seemed like quite a pivotal accomplishment.  It means that I’ve been at this thing for quite a while now and I guess I’m no longer a newbie.  Despite having around three years under my belt, I still feel that I have quite a ways to go as far as personal goals go.

I’m starting to become a lot more comfortable with my 3D skills.  I’m at the point where I can usually accomplish the look I set out for when I’m doing a comic.  Carrara has become fairly comfortable for me to use but I still need to become quicker with it. Sometimes I feel like there’s still a lot of trial and error going on when I’m working on a scene. Also, I’m still using version 7 of software most of the time.  I need to start using version 8 more.

My biggest technical hurdle at this point is post production.  These days most of that is being done in Photoshop Elements 8.  I know there’s probably a number of you screaming, “Why aren’t you using Photoshop CS!?!?”  Well, there are two reason for that. One is price and the other is the fact that CS is more program than I really need.  I did use GIMP in the past but I find that I’m much more comfortable using Photoshop’s interface.  Either way, I need more practice in the 2D world to accomplish what I want to do.

As far as the music side of BS/OD, I feel that I’m on track with my personal goals.  Doing the weekly one hour compositions has helped me out quite a bit.  I now have a number of ideas that are ready to be made into full songs.  So, I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing.

I group of convention appearances coming up starting in two weeks with the Baltimore Comic Convention.  I’m doing three conventions this year but next year I’m planning on around five.  If all goes well, I be adding Anime Central and Dragoncon to my list in 2011.

Over this past year, I feel that I’ve started taking what I do a lot more seriously. I think that partially due to some of the people I’ve made friends with in the webcomic world: Phil from Webcomic Planet, Byron from 1977 the Comic, and Chris from Capes n Babes.  There are more people I should add to that list but those three came to mind pretty quickly.  With the conventions I have coming up, I’m sure I’ll be adding even more names.