Daniel J. Hogan's Blog

Been working hard on that fairy tale re-telling for the CatsCurious Press submission. My stupid sinus infection last week cost me too many days of potential writing, so I'm sort of behind where I wanted to be at this point. But, I'm getting there. I'm over 5,000 words (the minimum) so I can put an amen on it at any point. I'm happy with the story thus far, although there are a few things I'll tweak. My only concerns are some parts coming off as too dark/creepy and not that funny. But, that's what the revising process is for--and I'd argue that the bad guy in this should be kind of creepy. You have to have a balance between funny/serious, light stuff/dark stuff, I think it makes for a well rounded story.

Oh, and I'm doing Rumpelstiltskin.  I don't think I mentioned that yet.  Having to write from the first person point of view of a young miller's daughter is a new challenge for me, but I think I'm doing a good job at not making her come off as a stereotypical helpless female character.  My goal from the start was to avoid that, which makes the story way more interesting.  She ain't helpless, that's for sure. Shes crafty and looking out for herself, which has been fun to write.

Also got the first disc of season 3 of Battlestar Galactica from Netflix. 'Bout time too. MAN...Apollo got faaaaaaat.  Anyone know where I can watch those webisodes that lead up to Season 3?  They did an OK job of filling in the blanks in the season opener, but I'd still like to see 'em.

In my continuing dream of some day doing a webcomic of sorts, I'm thinking of downloading a trial  version of Manga Studio and giving it a try.  Not that I expect it to increase my drawing skills overnight, I'm just looking for something easier to do drawing and layouts in. Flash is OK, but I'd like something a little better. Photoshop is a tad clunky for drawing straight into, for me anyway.  I still prefer drawing on paper, but that takes a lot more steps, but I may go back to that for my sketchblog nonsense at some point.  One of my favorite webcomics, Octopus Pie, is drawn in Manga Studio so it looks like a pretty neat program.

Here is my latest weekly sketch. I don't know why but I just naturally go to doing a comic for some reason, instead of just drawing a single picture. It is fun though. Previous sketches can be seen here: http://danieljhogan.livejournal.com/tag/sketchblog+2008

This is part one of a story based (very loosely) on actual events:


I'm getting better at drawing in Flash with my tablet. This is part of the reason I wanted to do this, to see how my skills grow (or not) over the course of 52 sketches/weeks (give or take). My favorite joke in this is panel two - the computer screen says "Not Porn," which I think is funny. I like the first drawing of the cockroach more than the second. I had to do a bit of changing things around: I redrew panel one with a mouse (tablet was at home) and I wrote the "To Be Continued" text with a mouse as well. Not too shabby. If you don't get the joke in the title, allow me to illuminate you.

Panel six actually did happen when a cockroach scurried through my cubicle at work a week or so ago (as documented on Twitter, here.)

Here's my latest sketch thing (trying to do something every week in 2008 - good or bad).



Hmmm...this compressed version doesn't look as good as I thought it would (that's what she said). I just dropped the export quality in Flash instead of running the jpeg through ImageReady, which is how I usually do things. Drew this in Flash with my Wacom tablet - I'm getting better at this. The next one I'm working on is almost epic in scope - I'm having fun though, which what this is all about. I'm also slowly getting my groove back RE: drawing in Flash with a tablet. I like drawing my text too, it is adding another bit of fun/dept to my work (and it is good practice too).

And yes - this actually did happen (more or less). I went to lift up the lid of my Foreman grill last week and I accidentally grabbed part of the grill and burned my thumb. I had a nice rectangular burn on my thumb for a few days - and at first I thought I wouldn't have that finger (thumb) print anymore. Too bad, I healed. Looks like I'll have to cancel that heist.

I forgot how much I like drawing in Flash.



I did this with my Wacom tablet in Flash, using the Paint Brush tool with Smoothing set to 100. Drawing with the Paint Brush Smoothing set to 100 is like playing electric guitar with a distortion pedal - it makes you look better than you actually are ::wink::

I may experiment with drawing in Flash for the time being. I want to keep forcing myself to draw with my Wacom to get better with it.

As mentioned in my previous post, I decided to take a stab at doing a very simple comic. Here is the fruit of that labor. You've been warned.


This is easily one of the worst things I've ever draw and put on the internet. But I had fun doing it. I drew this with my Wacom tablet right into Photoshop, so this was not my normal way of doing things and I still have some bugs to work out - and I have to get use to the tablet. Writing was especially difficult - but I like the look of hand drawn text.

For those who can't make out my horrible handwriting (amplified by trying to write with the tablet and the Pencil tool in Photoshop), I am visited by my future self and warned not to self-publish The Magic of Eyri. I (we) are then visited by another version of myself telling me TO do it. In the last part, I (we) are visited by a third (and hefty) incarnation of myself warning me not to drink that glass of milk - which responds by yelling "Curses!"

I guess you just can't trust milk anymore. Anyway, this was actually a thought I had last week or so - what would it be like to be visited by my future self (selves) and what they would try to tell me. If my art is any indication, I'm probably going to be OK after self-publishing since that version of me not only has a monocle and fez, but a very fancy mustache.

The Fat Future Me was originally going to have a Goofy Hat that you'd get at Disney World but I couldn't draw it the way I wanted. So he got a beret instead.

I was struck by (with?) inspiration today while trudging through a rather boring technical manual. I suddenly had this idea for a battery of sorts that would be a part of that steampunk story I'm kicking around. I quickly scribbled it down on a piece of note paper and then tried to redo it in my sketch book. I happened to have my digital camera (and card reader) on me (needed pictures of the Capitol Building for work) so I just took a quick snap shot of the two drawings together:



It would be a battery that gets its energy from some kind of rare (dangerous) crystal/stone/whatever. I think I like my original sketch (on the bottom) more. I thought on the top one that asymmetrical supports would look neat, but they really don't. Don't ask me how it works, I just came up with the design. This was fun, I miss drawing and need to do it more often. It helps me out a lot when writing. I pretty much have the story figured out in my head, now I just need to write it.