The Process

I’m sure there are literally zeroes of people who wonder what my artistic process is like.
Well, if you’re numbered among that non-existent group of people, this post is for you!
Really, there are two processes:  when I know what I want to draw, and when I don’t know what I want to draw.
Eventually, however, the two processes converge, and are mostly identical.  Here, we’ll examine the latter process, which is the less common process.  When I say it’s less common, I don’t mean that I engage in it less often than the other, it’s just that it’s less common for it to result in a final product that anyone sees.*
Let’s begin.

1. Launch Manga Studio
2. Open a new document
3.  Stare at blank document for several minutes
4.  Smoke break
5.  Stare at blank document for several minutes
6.  Begin drawing random strokes
7.  Erase random strokes
8.  Smoke break
9.  Return with a vague idea of what I should draw
10.  Begin sketching
11.  Begin erasing
12.  Shoulder begins to hurt
13.  Neck begins to hurt
14.  Lose some amount of sensation in drawing hand
15.  Reconsider vague idea of what I should draw
16.  Close document; click Do Not Save
17.  Repeat Steps 2-10
18.  Begin sketching something that looks halfway-decent
19.  Irretrievably fuck things up
20.  Swearing break
21.  Clear the document
22.  Begin sketching something that looks halfway-decent
23.  Consider halfway-decent sketch and decide to not scrap it
24.  Begin inking**
25.  Retrievably fuck things up
26.  Fix the fuck-ups
27.  Begin coloring with flat colors
28.  Create approximately a gajillion layers for shading, highlights, and midtones, which I will completely lose track of, resulting in drawing on layers that I hadn’t intended to draw on to an extent that goes beyond Manga Studio’s ability to Undo
29.  Try to get a different look to the colors, even though I’m not entirely certain what look I’m going for
30.  Revert to standard look; swear
31.  Shoulder and neck are now in agony; swearing has increased exponentially
32.  Curse the day I was born
33.  Vow to never attempt to draw again
34.  Sigh…then get back to work
35.  Vision in left eye is now blurry, and will remain so for several hours
36.  Smoke break
37.  Say, “Fuck it,” and decide to just draw yet another damned picture of Scarlett Johansson*** and give up any hope of ever doing anything new or different, or managing to bring to life the vague images – or rather, vague impressions of images – swirling around in my brain
38.  Close document; click Save, never look at it again
39.  Draw yet another damned picture of Scarlett Johansson
40.  Wonder why I even bother
41.  Do the whole goddamn thing over again

*Which is actually incredibly common; I would say that 80-90% of the time I spend drawing does not result in a finished product that anyone sees.

**Throughout this step, in addition to constantly erasing and hitting Undo, I will swear at my hand and/or the brush tool, and ask, “Why are you doing this???” as my hand and/or the brush produce lines that look nothing at all like what I’d intended them to look like.

***Or Kelly Brook, or Eve Angel, or some other random woman; the point is that it will just end up being the same old bullshit

Even In My Dreams

I took a nap earlier today and ended up engaging in a certain level of lucid dreaming.
I've managed it a few times in the past, though the degree of control I've been able to exhibit - as was the case today - has always been spotty at best.
The thing I've always seen about lucid dreaming is that the key is planting some sort of idea in your subconscious that will, when it appears in your dream, clue you in to the fact that you're dreaming.
(Because apparently the fact that things are constantly shifting and don't really make any sense isn't enough for our brains to figure it out.)
At that point, having recognized the fact that you're dreaming, you can begin trying to assert control over the world inside your own mind.
Most of the suggestions I've seen for such dream signals are things like specific colors or items.
For my part, what I've found to be the surest indicator that I'm dreaming is that somehow everything is even more of a pain in the ass than it is in the waking world.
For example, I might find myself in a dream trying to put on my shoes and discovering that it's taking me hours just to tie the laces.
That's usually the best indicator - in the dream I'm already late for something, and my attempts to try to make up for lost time are stymied at every turn, in ways that are just too outlandishly over-the-top even for me.
I can't help but wonder what it says about me that my dreams are where I find myself getting even more frustratraed and having even more things go wrong than in my conscious life.

Too Stupid To Live

My body is an idiot.
That's pretty much the only way I can think of to describe it.
"Hmm, maybe I should use all of this sugar that's floating around in my blood as an energy source." Pause. "Nah, I'll just use some of it for that and let the rest of it just beat the living shit out of my cells. It's a win-win!"
...
At this point it's been close to a year since I found out that I'm a diabetic. In that time I've changed my diet and exercise habits considerably, and I've lost more than 40 pounds.
Whoop-de-freaking-do.
I don't mean to diminish what I've accomplished - after all, it's pretty remarkable, especially given my inherent laziness - but sometimes it doesn't really feel like I've actually accomplished anything.
I mean, really, what have I accomplished?
I've gone from being in constant pain to being in slightly less constant pain and from being tired all of the time, even though I was getting plenty of sleep, to being tired all of the time because I'm not getting enough sleep.
And I'm always hungry.
And gassy.
Really, the biggest thing I've accomplished is learning that the expression "damned if you do, damned if you don't" is the best way to sum up my life.
Consider this:
One of the things that finally drove me to seek medical attention was the intense pain I would sometimes feel in my feet. Seriously, you can't imagine how painful it was. It felt like my nerves themselves were on fire.
Once I got my sugar under control, those sudden attacks of sheer agony went away, only to be replaced by a steady amount of pain as I recovered some of my damaged nerve function, which allows me to feel pain that I had previously been unaware of due to numbness.
Sure, it's not as painful as those attacks were, but it's pretty much always there, and there isn't really anything I can do about it, as it's pain that's caused, essentially, by simply existing.
So yes, my reward for successfully dealing with the cause of the frequent attacks of pain in my feet is to be able to feel the constant pain that was there all along.
Most of the pain is caused by troubles with my back, which are in turn mostly due to a car accident I had more than 20 years ago, and some basic structural deficiencies that I was born with.
I could, I suppose, start seeing the Chiropractor again in the hopes that this might provide some relief, but I've been seeing more and more reports linking treatment from Chiropractors to other health problems, such as strokes.
So, yeah. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Then there's the whole exercise issue. As mentioned, I'm tired most of the time because I don't get enough sleep. This is beause I have to get up early in the morning to exercise, since, after putting in a full day of work and dealing with traffic I don't always have enough motivation to exercise when I get home. I'm better able to get myself to exercise if I do it first thing in the morning, and if I'm going to to avoid the worst of the morning traffic when driving in to work (and, turn, avoid the worst of the afternoon traffic at the end of my day), that means getting up really damned early. Attempting to get anything accomplished when I get home from work - those few hours just fly past at breakneck speed - means very rarely getting to bed in time to get a sufficient amount of sleep before starting the whole thing over again.
(As an aside, is it any wonder that I don't actually go out into the world and do things? I have no time as it is.)
Beyond that, while losing weight and getting exercise are good for controlling my diabetes, there's an irritating balance that I always have to struggle to maintain. If I get a lot of exercise and burn a lot of calories, I feel better about myself and feel like I've accomplished something, but I actually end up raising my blood sugar levels.
For example, yesterday morning I put in 30 minutes on the elliptical, burning 500 calories. So, you know, go me! That's a good thing, right? Not really: my blood sugar was 152.
This morning I dialed it back and did 25 minutes - with a lower resistance - and burned 370 calories. My blood sugar was 91.
Eliminating fat is, in the long term, a good thing for my diabetes, but actually burning the fat causes my sugar levels to spike, which in turn raises my A1C levels.
On the other end of the spectrum, if I keep pushing past a certain point, and go for say, 45 minutes to an hour on the elliptical, my blood sugar may end up dropping to dangerously low levels. (And in order to put in that much time exercising I'd have to get up even earlier and get even less sleep.)
Still, 370 calories is nothing to sneeze at, but when I know that I have it in me to do a lot more than that, it's frustrating.
And ultimately, that's what this is about: frustration.
I'm not feeling sorry for myself, or looking for sympathy, or to come off like I think I have it so much worse than everyone else.
But I'm frustrated as hell.
And I admit that some of the issues I have are my own damned fault for living as unhealthy a life as I did up until a year ago, but the majority of the issues are things that are beyond my control.
Some of it, too, is a problem of patience, or a lack thereof: I want to be in better shape right now, dammit.
It certainly doesn't help matters any that my family history tells me that there are even worse things in terms of health - beyond the inevitable declines that come with age - looming in my future no matter what I do now...
But ultimately, what's driving my frustration is that I'm putting forth a good faith effort to work with the body I've got, genetic issues and the damaging affects of ruinous living and all, and finding that it seems to flatly refuse to work with me, or that it's just too goddamned stupid to do it.