Thing I Wrote - 'Work Related Stress'

While I had some down time at the 2nd parent / teacher evening of the year - I had a look though the 'creative' folder of my document file. There were some things in there which I don't really remember writing that I quite enjoyed reading. Mostly they were just fragment of things, mostly starts of stories, but I found this little piece which I remember writing early into the term last year. I thought you might enjoy it in lieu of a drawing.





Work Related Stress

It used to be better. The higher ups will tell you differently, of course – but it was better when things were simpler.

 Used to be it didn’t matter if they saw us. ‘Angels !’ they’d yell, and fall to their knees in quivering supplication, or ‘Demons !’ they’d scream – and they’d turn and run, try to sprint and genuflect simultaneously. In other places there’d be cries of ‘Ghosts!’ or ‘Dragons!’ or ‘Gods!’ – but the end result was the same. They’d run or avert their eyes, and we’d carry on our work. Tending our fields, as the serfs tended theirs.

 Then they got a whole lot smarter.

 Cameras were a bit of a pain. But they were expensive, cumbersome things to begin – by the time one of them could set one up we’d have been long gone. We would only be hear-say, mad-ravings, or at best a tall-tale.

 It seemed like only a blink of an eye, a quick spin around Sol – they were suddenly small, cheap and EVERYWHERE.

 Used to be that visible-spectrum cloaks only had to be used when in or around metropolitan areas. You could take it easy in the deeps of the rural locations, not have to endure the molecule shaking, brain-squeezing, micro-lesion forming misery of the cloaking field, cutting though the composite alloy hull like a sharp saw through bone. And if one or two images did get captured – was it so bad ? There was a high degree of skepticism on the surface. “It’s obviously fake !” and “A clever hoax!’ and ‘Smoke and mirrors !’ and ‘It’s spoon-bending all over again’.

 And then they went and invented film.

Video.

High-definition motion-capture.

 So now – VSC’s on at full-strength for every assignment.

 EVERY.

 ONE.

 Orders from the Federation Core itself.

 ‘Can’t compromise the experiment’ and ‘Widespread panic will ensue’ and ‘internal organic fluids splashed in the streets I tell you’.

 It used to be this job was fun. Still – it won’t be long now before the fleet is here, and me and the rest of the acquisition scouts can move on.

 Hopefully we’ll find somewhere still in it’s pre-historic stage. You know ? Somewhere we can just kick back for a few millennia. Before the harvest begins.

 I can’t wait.

Dunesteef cover #4 - HIJ - Provisional Final Image

I think it's done :

We'll see what the Dunesteef guys think !

Dunesteef cover #4 - HIJ - Shading - Stage 1

I love getting to this stage of a digital drawing. Here's where it starts to really take shape and finally starts to look alright ! -

Major developments today : - A good deal of shading. - Textures added to the bags. - Re-drew / re-shaded the skirt patterns so that the pattern was balanced. - Added a gradient layer to slightly darken the sky a little more from the top. I should be finished this very soon.

Dunesteef cover #4 - HIJ - Background and eyes

Yet another big day with the kids. More swim lessons, more craziness in general. Angelo's new fav game - I pretend to be a bird. he runs up to me and throws some grass at me, I shriek in surprise and 'fly' away - flapping my arms madly. Good times. Anyway - was able to give an hour to the pic :

The background is provisional - but it looks okay at the moment.

Dunesteef cover #4 - HIJ - Full base colour

Argh - my desktop computer is dying ! The screen is going all weird. Sigh. So I've done the remaining colour was done on my work laptop.

Getting better. I might have to re-do the lines of the Witch's skirt - the unbalanced colour is annoying me.

Dunesteef cover #4 - HIJ - First colour

A very busy day. Been with the kids through most of it, then I figured I'd better start some school work. Still - I was able to give an hour to the art work, and I've started to add colour now :



Not a bad start !

Dunesteef cover #4 - HIJ - Even more detail / image centered

Another big day with the family. Lorenzo asleep at a reasonable time tonight, thanks to Viv taking him for a walk this evening instead of me !

Here's the current state of the cover art :



With the outlines MOSTLY done, I thought it was finally time to properly center the image, which was always a little off.

Time to rest !

Dunesteef cover #4 - HIJ - More detail, clothes and bags and such

Oh god - when does the crying stop ? Poor little Lorenzo has been not sleeping well the last few days - I think he's teething. Man - that has got to suck when you're a little guy. Anyway - I was able to do some more outlines tonight, and I've done a little more the last few nights :



I'm going to sit down and stare into space for a bit now.

Dunesteef cover #4 - HIJ - Back to the action !

Time to get back to the 'Halloween in July' cover now that the Drabblecast one is done.
Not much tonight - just the hands and bags ( or at least the start of them ) for the hobo and witch ghosts.
It's been a LONG day - and I'm going to sit down and watch tv for a little while before I crash.

Drabblecast art - Final image w/ titles !

Just heard back from Bo Kaier, the art director of The Drabblecast, and he deemed the art 'very cool' - which I'm very happy about !

Here's how it will look with the titles :



Pretty great - even if I do say so myself !!

Drabblecast cover art - provisional final image

I think it might be finished :



Time to send it through to the art director and see what he thinks !

Drabblecast cover art - more shading + background

Very close now :



Not totally sold on the background - but it's better than nothing at the moment !

Drabblecast cover art - more colour

Got a good amount done today :



Not too much more to do now. Kinda stuck with what to do with the background - I'm sure I'll figure out something.

Drabblecast cover art - first colour application

Had a chance to start colouring today :



I'll be happier when I can get some shade in. Bo ( the Drabblecast Art director ) gave me a interesting sounding colouring technique - but for the life of me I couldn't get it to work properly, which is really annoying because it sounded really good. I know I'm doing it wrong somewhere along the line. I'll have to check the instructions again.

Drabblecast cover art - hair and knit texture

I've got one week to go. I've been adding / warping the knit texture tonight.