[080825]
So it’s funny that today’s comic is what it is. Like a week ago, J was making some comment about drawing blood and I said that I’d tried it a few times. Well, 473, which, just FYI, was drawn in March, just happens to be one of those tries. C070211 is another, and as you may have guessed, so is next week’s 474. While I don’t really have anything against the attempt at blood here, I have to admit, the shading sucks pretty hard. As such, you will notice a series of shading fuck ups within the next ten or so comic pages while I try to sort something out.
So that’s pretty much all there is to say about 473. Today I finished my first story comic (488) since June this year. I’m missing my 6H pencil, so it’s kinda hard to do any sort of outlining atm. Other than the fact that it’s the first story comic since June this year and that it has some pretty heavy-handed shading (really still some backlash from the crappy shading of today’s 473), there’s nothing else to say about 488. It’s very average. Moving on now.
Yes, it’s been about ten years since J and I started doing comics. Yes, that’s a long time. It’s more than half the time I’ve been alive. Yes, I’m almost twenty now. Yes, that means I was nine in 1998. Yes, I was younger than I actually thought I was. Wait what…
Here’s a dumb comparison that I can really only make now in the tenth year. If you look at the episode one linked in Justin’s entry, you’ll notice it says… well, “Episode 1”. As I may have mentioned before, this is first in the numbering system that I am still using to this date; this “Episode 1” is “Episode 1” as in 473 (today’s comic) minus 472 (number). This is technically Epsiode 473 though that makes absolutely no sense as one page now certainly doesn’t qualify as an “episode” in any sense of the word. Then again, neither did the pages back then, really…
Back to the comparison, “Episode” 200 (too lazy to scan it – looks about like the first page of Starcrossed) was drawn just over five years ago, in July of 2003. This also marks the approximate time that I started taking this comic thing a bit more seriously and thus the approximate time that the art stopped looking like crap. Relatively. When 200 was drawn, the pages were still numbered chronologically (as in Episode 1 was drawn before Episode 2 and Episode 2 was drawn before Episode 3, etc) (though nowadays, a00 numbering series used in the part 2 remake) which implies that I drew exactly 200 comic pages (of varying quality from shitty to very shitty) between July 2008 and July 2003.
You work out the numbers (488 – 200 + 17, 17 from the a00 series) and you’ll see that I drew just over three hundred comic pages (of varying quality from very bad to bad XD) between July 2003 and July 2008. Not bad I daresay – there’s a jump in quantity AND quality. WOOT.
Another anniversary is that of my D830. I’ve had it just shy of a year today and I’m generally pleased with it – performance, build quality, appearance – all very good. The problem is that it’s a 15″ machine. Having owned this machine for a year, I’ve come to despise 15″ form factors. And 17″ form factors. And fuckin 20″ form factors and all the piddly shit between (and yes, HP and Dell have both made 20″ “laptops” – they are fuckin hueg like XBOX).
Somehow between 2003 and 2007, fifteen inch became the new mainstream laptop size. Subsequently since J and a few other ppl I knew already had 15″s, I figured it’d be fine to get a 15 myself. My 500m and Latitude CpT C were both pretty mainstream for the time, so what’s wrong with buying another mainstream sized machine? It’ll be nice to have a bigger screen for anime or drawing right? WUXGA fantasic on 15 inches right?
No, not quite. First of all, WUXGA at native resolution on a 15 inch screen is miniscule. I really liked the SXGA+ on my 500m so I figured one step up in screen size would justify one step up in relative resolution… no, not quite. WUXGA on a 15 inch screen is PUNY. Furthermore, I learned that I cannot tell the difference at all between 720p and 1080p. I think a pleasant viewing experience is more about filling up the screen rather than the resolution of hte relevant video. This is completely bullshit when it comes to widescreen as some dumbass decided that TV widescreen and notebook widescreen shouldn’t be the same resoltion. What the crap is up with that shit. 3:4 anime looks nicer on my significantly smaller TC4200 than widescreen anime looks on the D830. As for drawing? I’ve got a a very practical TC4200 to draw on right now and I don’t think I’ll be using a conventional tablet for a while, especially considering the size (and subsequent immobility) of my Intuos3.
I also had to buy a new backpack which I am not terribly fond of for a computer that doesn’t fit on the puny-shit auditorium desks that most of my classes have so far been held in. Did I mention that 15 laptops are hueg? Liek XBOX? I maintain that weight still isn’t really a problem. 6lbs is about how much my old CpT C weighed. My how technology has progressed.
So widescreen 15″ laptops are suddenly the mainstream, displacing the standard 14″ machines that have held the market for such a long time. This is complete bullshit. I don’t seen how people can live with it. I don’t even want to go on about glossy chassis and glossy screens. HP dv6x00 and dv9x00 (15 and 17 machines, respectively) series machines are among the ugliest pieces of computer to grace the market for long time now. “Entertainment Notebook” my ass. And people say Dell is ugly. Sadly the dv6x00 and dv9x00 series machines are pretty much representative of the typical consumer machine. It’s absolutely terrible what has become of this market.
I’m hoping to get at least a grand from D830 since it’s in good shape even for a one year old machine. I want to put that towards an E6400. It’ll be cool. If I can scrape together enough, I’ll have a C600, a D600, and an E6400 (which should have been called the E600). In another six years I can buy an F600!
Anyways, I actually didn’t mean to rant about 15″ laptops. But the industry is cheap and consumers are dumbasses.
