The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Niveous checking in. It's been a busy month with FAWM. I made a valiant effort to do 28 songs this year. I'll end up with 16. Not bad. Not 28, but not bad. Now that things are settling down, I'm going to get some new SF:TR cards done.

QotD: Can you draw?

Recently, I came to the conclusion that I get stressed out by drawing. My youngest son gives me homemade comic books all the time and I tried to return the favor and found that drawing is really not my thing.

Howdy. I used to be able to draw very well, it's all that I did as a kid. Threw it away for rock ' roll as a teen. I did do some comic strips of life stories a year ago that came out VERY rusty but fun. Funny you should ask this, as I recently thought about giving up music to return to drawing. Not yet though, sorry!

I draw all the time. http://beesbuzz.biz/d/

I'm not that good at it but I'm always trying to improve. For me it helped to read a scan of Preston Blair's animation book, which is pretty easy to find online. Lots of stuff about character construction, line of action, etc. which is all good to know. I also go to a cartooning meetup nearly every week and that helps a lot too.

I definitely spend more time on comics than on music these days.

I did a few self-published comic books when I got out of college, but the reception was -meh-.
I still get a lot of -meh- response for my music, but each song is 3-5 hours effort, instead of 400 for the comic.
I draw a funny little note for my wife each morning, before she gets up. It makes us both happier.

I can't even draw a conclusion.

I doodle a bit. Recent examples attached. The cartoon is my attempt to emulate Kate Beaton, and the other is a drawing for "I Don't Believe You" by Boy and Guitar (done for an unrelated project):

Albatross wrote:I can't even draw a conclusion.

No. I can't draw. But I could write a far better response than that.

I'm drawing a blank as we speak.

Jerkatorium, you should participate in Commuter Challenge...oh that's right, you do that already!

I've always been pitiful with art and design. I'm about to finish a new album, and I've done almost all the work myself (including some of the art), but I had to call in a friend to help me execute the idea I had for the front cover.

Speaking of which... I'm in full-on album-finishing rush mode. Eleven new songs. Six of them are completely finished (recorded, mixed, mastered), four more have the recording finished (where I've mixed them enough to share demos with close friends, but they still need some tinkering before they're album-ready), and one last one still needs vocals before I can mix it. I'm getting physical prints (professionally duplicated, for once!), and I'm aiming to get the songs all uploaded for public consumption by March 10. I'm working with a local printer who promise a 48-hour turnaround, but I'd really like to get masters to them by Friday, to be on the safe side. That means I've been singing, re-recording parts, mixing, and mastering, basically every waking hour when not at work for the last week or so. And not sleeping as much as I ought to.

For me, it's the thrilling conclusion of six months of hard work. Before this project I hadn't had this level of inspirational rush in a while, one when I've been burning the candle at both ends and still feel like I have energy to spare. To me, this feeling is one of the coolest parts about this hobby of ours. When the end of a long project is in sight, and you just get to sprint to the final goal... It's a difficult feeling to describe to someone who's never done a long creative project. The work is rewarding enough in and of itself, but very soon I'll also have something tangible to show for it, too.

I'll be sure to let you guys know when it's all ready.

yeah, i think so, but i don't get to exercise it that much. it might be fun to have one of those drawing tablets for the computer, but who knows how often i'd use it. most of my drawings these days go on whiteboards.
-bill

Being totally blind, I don't do much visual artistic stuff. However, there is the technology to draw a line with a specialized pencil on specialized paper and make a raised line, and therefore it is possible to make raised images, but I haven't done that lately. I know the basics, though.