A Little Bit of Process: Sower

2 May 20232 May 2023 ~ Not Alison ~ Leave a comment

For a panel in my work-in-progress, I first sketched out the image I had in my head (3 Jl 2021):

pencil sketch of a faceless, hairless body walking to the left; with her left hand she tosses five small objects away from her; the ground slopes behind her and a sun occupies the top left corner; an orange line is drawn roughly around the image on the left and at bottom

Afterwards I wrote a brief description in the word-processing document that includes the text for the entire story:

<ZAJ: walking along barren, bare yellow-brown land, casting handful of five tiny dark-brown seeds to ground, has NO bag with more seeds; wears simple jeans loose and baggy, thin button-up long-sleeved shirt open at top with undershirt beneath, sleeves rolled at elbows, boots under pants legs; show land going on and on around her, all bare>

A year and a half later (7 Fb 2023) I finally got around to doing a regular drawing, which I did without more than a glance at the original sketch. I ended up with this:

pencil drawing of a woman walking towards the right but looking towards the left; with her right hand she tosses five small items away from her; the land in the background looks rough and shows no vegetation

Two months later I happened to look at the sketch version again and couldn’t help thinking it was much superior in feeling to the “finished” drawing (which I had examined recently when posting it in “Teaser Fragments 8”).

So I made a new drawing (12 Ap 2023):

pencil drawing of a woman walking towards the left; with her left hand she tosses five small items away from her; the sloping land in the background looks rough and shows no vegetation; a large sun occupies the top right corner

And I’ll be using this one for the final work.

Teaser Fragments 8

13 April 202313 April 2023 ~ Not Alison ~ Leave a comment

Still more unpolished snippets from my work in progress.

pencil drawing of a woman walking towards the left; with her right hand she tosses five small items away from her; the land in the background looks rough and shows no vegetation

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pencil drawing of an old-fashioned balance scale that has a long bar and a cup on each end; the cups appear empty, but the one on the left is lower, almost touching the base

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pencil drawing of old USB-A flash drives, five on the top row, seven on the bottom row; the connector end of each one is exposed; there are a few different types; four of the drives have caps that are lying above them; another drive has a sliding case that is not fully pulled down

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pencil drawing of a woman sitting on the floor, seen from behind and to her left; her hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail; her left hand is pulling up a page of the book in front of her while one finger of her right hand presses down on the next page of the book; several clear plastic index dividers are beside her; a wrinkled sheet of paper rests on a piece of plastic further to her left, and a pair of scissors lies on the floor beside that

Teaser Fragments 7

28 March 202328 March 2023 ~ Not Alison ~ Leave a comment

Another trickle of uncorrected snippets from my work in progress.

pencil drawing of two desks, side by side, one with a computer monitor and peripherals; a floor lamp with a swinging arm stands nearby

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pencil drawing of a woman, seen head to waist, standing in a narrow aisle between two tall bookcases; she is looking at the book she holds in her hands

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pencil drawing of a woman’s head in close-up; she wears glasses and her hair is pulled up in a ponytail at the top of her scalp; the wall behind her has a tile pattern

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pencil drawing of a woman lying chest-down on a mattress, with her face turned to the viewer and her eyes wide open; a sheet covers the lower half of her body; a pillow is on the floor in front of the mattress

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pencil drawing of two women in a store environment, both in face masks; one is behind a plexiglass screen and holds a DVD while turning to one side; the other stands watching; between them on a counter is a small pile of books and DVDs

Teaser Fragments 6

3 January 20233 January 2023 ~ Not Alison ~ Leave a comment

Another batch of cropped but uncorrected images from my work in progress.

pencil drawing of a chair in front of a couch facing a TV; a keyboard and cables are on the floor

pencil drawing of someone sitting on the floor, seen from one side and behind, leaning forward to work on a broad upright piece of wood attached at the bottom to a longer piece of wood flat on the floor; a lamp is near her, its arm extended towards her; a desk is in the corner of the room beyond her; an instruction manual is open behind her between other broad pieces of wood and some vague small packages and a hammer

pencil drawing of a woman with head tilted slightly to look up; she wears a mask over nose and mouth; beyond her are wide vertical blinds turned to block the view

pencil drawing of part of a room showing two desks along the left wall; a window with horizontal blinds is on the back wall; a makeshift curtain covers the top part of the window; in the floor is a mattress (no bed frame) mostly covered by a sheet, along with a lamp; to the right is an empty rolling office chair (no arms), rough sketches of someone sitting, and a more finished drawing of someone sitting in a chair

pencil drawing of a woman seen from behind about rib level and higher, using one finger to pull down the horizontal blinds enough to look out; her hair is in a high ponytail — This is bad for your blinds and you shouldn’t do it.

pencil drawing of someone seen from behind looking at a wide computer monitor; she has one hand on a keyboard on a shelf sticking out from under the desk; she is sitting low with her neck in a position that might be uncomfortable

What I’m Up To

25 October 202225 October 2022 ~ Not Alison ~ Leave a comment

These are some of the things keeping me busy these days:

The Work in Progress

Every day I’m drawing more panels for my work in progress, seen sporadically in my “Teaser Fragments” posts. Here’s a couple more glimpses:

drawing of a woman seen from a slight distance as she assembles a floor lamp with a desk on one side of her and a window with blinds pulled up on the other side; a lampshade sits on the floor

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Updates to Not a Cat Lady

I’m modifying multiple pages of Not a Cat Lady. Much of the work is mere tweaking and still more polishing, but I’ve also been fixing a number of panels that made me cringe every time I saw them.

While doing that I’m revising the posts for the entire novella, doing away with the gallery interface and presenting the art pages directly. It’s not something I can do all at once, so the Not a Cat Lady posts will transition gradually.

a drawing of a woman in low light seen directly from above as she lies in bed with her eyes wide open; one arm is bent with a hand beside her pillow, and the other arm stretches along her side with the hand on top of the sheet

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Movies and TV Shows

My self-indulgent reviews of shows I watch have dragged to a halt because right now I’m working my way through the original Thundercats series (130 episodes), and I can’t resist writing an in-depth commentary on nearly every episode. I’m struggling to figure out how much of that content to post here. I don’t mean for this to become a Thundercats fan site, and I know I’m going off the deep end analyzing it all.

I focus a lot on the “proper” order in which to watch the episodes—neither broadcast order nor production order fully works for season one, even accounting for how multi-part stories were divided—so that brings up the question of how to arrange whatever entries I do post.

At this point I’m still in season two, with about fifty episodes to go, although I might get started posting something even before I’ve finished rewatching everything.

detail of a photo of the inner cover of the Thundercats complete series DVD set, focused on the circular Thundercats symbol