vendettacomic

Most people that know me, know where I stand on certain issues, or where I do not stand. Most people that know me also understand that I rarely talk about the happenings of Vendetta, and the underlying themes that are woven into the story. Today is one of the times where I will openly voice one of my beliefs and ideologies.

In Vendetta, particularly the more recent chapters, I have illustrated the desire to find a cause worth fighting for. To me, a cause that literally is bigger than one self, that feels so fundamentally pure that I feel it is worth taking flak over is a beautiful thing.

What is this cause? What is this earth-shattering cause that I am willing to stick my neck out for? Well since November 4th is drawing close, I am sure those who are United States citizens understand that what I am talking about is political in nature. Am I talking about McCain or Obama? No. The topic of this dicussion is not even in the national election. California Proposition 8 is the proposed amendment to the California state constitution to ban same sex marriage. Those that know me will know instantly where I stand on this subject. I have not and will never support Prop. 8 or any one like it.

Why am I so fervently in opposition to this amendment that will only effect maybe 10% of the population? Simply because I am not a believer of prejudice based on someone sexuality. Not even fifty years ago Mescegenation Laws prevented interracial couples from marrying. It was claimed that such an act was unnatural and the Bible forebode it. Strangely enough, many proponents of Prop. 8 argue the same points. Advocating sites of Prop. 8 primarily focus on the effects same sex marriage will have on the church, saying that:

"Churches may be sued over their tax exempt status if they refuse to allow same-sex marriage ceremonies in their religious buildings open to the public. Ask whether your pastor, priest, minister, bishop, or rabbi is ready to perform such marriages in your chapels and sanctuaries." (whatisprop8.com)

Unless I am mistaken, The First Amendment to the US Constitution keeps the laws from infringing on the church and (in theory) vice versa. However, people do not need a church to be married. Marriage licenses are given by courts. This means that the law will not have any direct effect from same sex marriage. If a church decides not to wed same sex couples, then the government (and myself included) will not try to convince them otherwise. There are already plenty of churches all over the state that will happily participate in such weddings.

It also seems that a supporters for Prop. 8 keep pushing that the children will have to be taught that same sex marriage is okay, which may clash against the parents right to teach children their own value and beliefs. The only way for a parent to instill only one doctrine into something is if it is a computer that is not plugged into anything except a power outlet. Even if that were the case, a power surge my completely fry the computer. What do I mean by that? If a child is taught only one thing their entire life, the moment a secondary idea comes into their life there is a possibility of drastic consequences. If a child attends school, then they will without a doubt, learn things that the parents did not want them to. Most of the time such information comes from other students, not the teachers. With the advent of the internet, such excess information can come faster.

In a case that is much more close to the claims of the followers was the Evolution vs. Creationism debate for schools. The same argument ended with only a sticker in the science books saying that evolution is only a theory.

Change is a scary thing. No question there. While it may be intimidating, it is necessary and an eventuality. Traditions are never forever. You all know what my vote is. Those Californians that are not registered to vote, Click Here to start the registration process, you must be registered by Oct 20th, so do not delay. It only takes a few minutes. You can do it during the course of one song on your MP3 player. The only way to shoot down this agregious attack on human rights is to get out and vote. I do not care which presidential candidate you vote for, this proposed amendment will have an impact on someone you know. 10% of the population identifies themself as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered. The more people you know, the more people you know the more likely this will directly affect them. This vote is not for yourself, but for others. A minority. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, same sex marriage will be legal throughout the United States. The question then is: Do you want to be on the leading edge, or the trailing one?

Vote NO on Prop. 8

Wow, it has been a long time since I have posted to this journal. I guess the main reason for the last few months was the moving, graduating then the 2 month span of kidney stone problems. I do resolve to be a bit more prudent about updating this thing and including the sketches I manage to do between comics or random writings I may do.

I missed both comics last week due to my recovery from surgery the week beforehand, and it seems I will be unable to make tomorrow's update as well, but I will truly try to make up for it.

So I'm sitting here in my European Cinema class and we're watching Triumph of the Will. Ya know, Nazi propaganda just isn't my thing.

Anyways, here's some doodles for you all to look at.

( 3 sketches beneath )

Hooooooly shit. Sonic is going to be in Smash Bros. Brawl. I remember when I was a kid, Mario and Sonic were bitter enemies. Now, not only are there Sonic games available on the Wii, but now he's also in Smash Bros. Now that's a hardcore reversal from what it was like in the past.

I've never really been a fan of Sonic, yeah, some of the maps in the games were pretty fucking awesome, but I dunno, the fact that you didn't know what was coming always annoyed me. Ah well, it'll be interesting to play as Sonic in Smash Bros... Though I'm still going to stick with my main man, Link.

School has started once again, and hopefully this will be the start of the final year of school for me. Even though I love seeing my friends and professors, I just want to get out of there soon.

I have a feeling bandwidth is going to be a serious issue for the comic this month. I've been eating it up a lot faster than I originally thought I would while advertising the comic around the internet. This past Monday, 4.51 Gigs of bandwidth were used. When I saw it, I was like, "YES!.... NO!" So I might need to give my web host a little ring-ring to see what I need to do about getting more bandwidth. I'm also considering a move do a different server.

Well, I'm hungry, I think I'll go pay like 10 bucks for a sandwich.

( 1 sketch beneath )

Probably one of the simultaneous best and worst things about this summer is the amount of time that I have been able to devote to working on Vendetta. The plus factor is that I have been able to keep my update schedule without a single missed comic since the onset of summer; I feel that my art has improved a bit over the last few weeks; and the advertising for the comic is starting to pay off at least a little bit. There have been more readers returning for the past few weeks than I honestly thought would from the advertisings. And something that I thought was really cool was the sheer amount of bandwidth that I used in about a week or so. I went from 2Gb to 28Gb, which was very near my limit of 30Gb a month.

The only real bad part is that I am not sure who I should advertise with since, in the vast series of tubes that is the internet, it is hard to find a guaranteed hit for story based webcomics.

The negative for this summer is the sheer lack of time that I've had to work on non-Vendetta things. I have been dying to do some poster-type art as well as non-Vendetta mini comics to sell at conventions and whatnot, but it is extremely hard to find time to even doodle. Hopefully when my next semester starts I'll be able to doodle randomly in class, which is always fun.

I need to redesign the site. It looks and is so boring.

So it's been a long time since I've updated, I've just been really busy. The semester has ended, and, for the first time since like 7th grade, I've gotten a 4.0. Hell yeah. So here, have a picture.

( 1 image beneath )

"Bam! Gummie Bear!" on Google Video
Just in case any of you were interested, here is the timelapse video of me inking and coloring the gummie bear pic. It is at 6.65x normal speed. This was the main reason why I didn't post the Gummie Bear pic sooner, my harddrive is almost entirely full and I didn't have any room to render the video, but alas, it has been finished, including a typo in the credits. Enjoy! (it should be "The Servant - Cells")

So there's a story behind this one.

Emeril has cooked for me a couple times, and I happened to tell a couple class-mates last semester and then there was a string of dialogue as follows:
Friend one: Emeril? That's awesome.
Friend two: Yeah, I swear he can take anything and make it good.
Friend three: Yeah! He'd be like "BAM! GUMMIE BEAR!"
Me: I'm SO drawing that.

I finished it a couple months later, and only now am able to post it. :P

I'm sure there are at least some of you reader out there that are still curious as to what has kept me this busy this semester. I am taking 5 classes: 3D computer animation, Sound Design, Production Management, Cinematography and Writing the Short Script.

The 3D animation class and Sound Design requires about 3 hours of lab time each. With cinematography, due to the fact that we're all students, it's hard to find people who are available for more than one day of shooting, so there's a lot of planning that go into the one day of shooting. Then of course you have to edit the video which takes some time. Then there's production management. This is the class the requires the least outside work. Every few weeks, I have to go to campus on the weekend to use some of the machines there to either budget, schedule, or break down a movie script. Then there's the script writing class, over the course of the semester, two short scripts are due. The first one which was an adaptation of a story was due just before spring break. And the second one, which is an original story, is due today. The first script was 14 pages, of the maximum 20 for the final draft. The script I'm turning in today, however, is 25 pages for the first draft of a maximum 20 pages. And I could have written more for it too.

Then there's sound design. Since I don't have in depth knowledge of the sound design that goes into film, I felt I should take this class. Now, I've learned quite a bit, like that I don't want to be a sound supervisor or a mixer, or pretty much anything in sound except maybe a Foley Artist. But I'll have more in depth knowledge about sound when I'm directing a scene than a lot of directors out there.

3D animation has been killing me because of the sheer lack of people in that class and the scale of the project itself. Originally there were two directors, me and another guy, but he basically dropped off the face of the planet for a few weeks and didn't tell anyone which put me in a position that I had to take hold of the entire project, hack it to pieces and come up with a new idea that can be finished before the end of the semester. Lest to say, I have my work cut out for me for the next few weeks.

So that, in a nutshell is what has kept me busy this entire semester.

I'm amazed I've been able to keep up with the comic. Of course my social life went down the shitter, but I'm used to that. :P

( 1 image beneath )

My Chinese Water Dragon, Nibbles, may sit placidly on my shoulder for a while, and thin in a moment of spontaneity, leap into the wild blue yonder to escape. I nearly lost him a couple times when he was smaller. So now I got a leash for him. I smush his hopes for freedom! Mwahahaha! >:D

( 1 sketch beneath )

( 1 image beneath )

So being in class, I often doodle and whatnot. And since I don't always sit in the back, people tend to watch me draw or play games... like right now D:

( Valentine's Day pic beneath )

( 1 sketch beneath )

Well back in school again. This is the first time I've had a class before 11 am since my first year in college. The pain... the horrible pain... and it's fucking cold too.

So a friend of mine volunteers at a place that keeps and breeds some wild animals, like Wolves, Lions, Tigers, Panthers, etc., in North Carolina. Since I was going to be at Epcot Center at Disney World, I was offered to have a detour on my way there to make a stop and hang out with my friend as well as the big cats.
( 6 pictures of extremely dangerous animals lie beneath! OMFG! )

As promised, I'll upload a bunch of things soon, I've just been really sick the last few days and to make things worse, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess has totally owned my soul. Now I'm behind on art, and spring semester starts on Monday.

The comic will probably be uploaded sometime in the evening on Saturday, if all things go well.

Merry Christmas kiddies.

"vendettacomic.com photoshop speech bubble tutorial" on Google Video
In this photoshop tutorial, I show you how to create a basic speech bubble and thought bubble. This one with less um's and uh's!

"Photoshop Tutorial" on Google Video
Here is a video tutorial I have made that demonstrates how I ink and color an image in photoshop as well as add shadows and highlights.