What A Lovely Day

Pam,

I have to get this on here before I get too tired. Yeah, it was a good day. Not very productive on the freelance art side, but got lots of food, was happy, and did this week’s Cats VS. Check it out.

DFTBA,

Neil

PS. Sorry I don’t have any probing questions or issues to talk about. I’ve drawn a lot today. Need to do something else. Discuss.

Money and Pain

Pam,

Hersheypark went much better today. Because it was Friday and I was in a better location. I sold $348 of stuff today! Made $65 commission instead of $57 minimum wage. It made me very happy to be that active and excited enough to call out, advertise, and talk to more people. I even got to draw for an authentic Irish family on vacation! I also got to catch up and hang out with my old college friend Ryan, who has worked at Hersheypark for years

Now for the painful part. Simple picture I give to you. What I feel like.

We’ll be in town Saturday. Hope to see you. -yawn-

-Neil

Non-sequential blogging.

– So. Here’s a post I written earlier. On Monday I think. I am all grumpy and unenthused right now. So I hope you figure it out.

Mandy did it; she emailed a good, professional email to Hank Green about writing for EcoGeek or one of it’s partners. I’m so proud of her! Now we wait to see if he replies or possibly telephones Mandy back. Our one friend who told us about Brotherhood 2.0 in the first place, ‘crapped his pants’ when he heard she emailed Hank.

Today I got some photo touch-up work done. It’s amazing how God has provided us with opportunities in my career. It’s because of our involvement in Sunday School that Kevin Long asked me to do photo work for him and now for a friend. Which might give me other graphic design work later. And Gottalottaheart: That came from Eric DeWalt’s coffee shop gallery invitation. Karen Simmons has been hiring me to do some graphic design for her, and she’s constantly thinking of me when she’s networking her mascot business. She’s even talking of funding supplies so I can do caricature gigs! Karen is my second mom, I swear. One more thing I gotta think about is contacting Kenneth Rapp about his connection to the greeting card division of Target stores. Jeez. I simultaneously feel like I have too much to do and not enough at the same time.

Aside from that today, when I woke up, it was a foul mood that plagued me. If it weren’t for Mandy’s optimism, I’d probably done nothing today and lived to regret it.

We’re going out soon to hunt for cat food.

Hey Pammy, I’ve been meaning to ask you: What is your position on our mother reading this stuff. Mom knows its happening, and she reads my blog, but we wanted to clear it with you if it was okay for her to read. It could actually make things go smoother between you two. Could. But it’s up to you.

Sticky Situations

More doodle. Less type. But some type nonetheless.

Thanks for the insight about Andersen. Although I probably never read the book. I guess I’ll check it out at your house.

My doodles below. First part: a daydream. Second… it’s hot. Third: Mandy is going to help my Greeting Card client by doing crap work of punching holes. BUT SHE GAVE US THE WRONG BOX! I had to meet her and switch before work.

That is my day. Not much insight other than Hershey is still not profitable. My old college classmate returned to work at Hershey, as he has done it for years. Yay, friend to work with.

Make sure to check out Thursday’s Cat VS. We appreciate all your commenting, Pam, our most loyal fan!

P.S.  Mandy could have a chance to WORK for Hank Green writing for his website. But she’s intimidated to try out. Let’s do our best to encourage her!

Movie, Sushi, and… Tires?

Oh jeez, not more tires. Thank you for taking time to drive out to the garage on Monday. After Iron Man, (which was very enjoyable for geeks like us) we hit a wall after we found our car was hard to get to. I don’t like driving Dad’s car and Mandy LOATHES riding in Dad’s car, so the news really upset her and could of ruined our whole day. But I pulled a solution out of my butt after she had to go through the trouble of being upset. I wish that didn’t happen.

But then we went to Okini, a sushi/pan-asian restaraunt on Walnut St./Jonestown Road. they make good sushi, but it’s really good because of the choices for us. They have cucumber, avocado, sweet potato (awesome), a salad roll, edamine, and this amazing Satay Tofu. It’s a little tofu boat fried, with beansprouts and cucumber inside with peanut sauce. It’s totally jokes.

Then after that we ran around looking for Goodwill before closing, failed, then went to Marshalls to get me a pair of tiny shorts so I don’t DIE at Hershey. (* This first half was written in the morning. Will update a night)

Okay then. Didn’t die at Hershey. Just was very bored and sat around and drew a lot.

I’ve been very busy lately. So much so, I have urges to play video games when I can’t, and when I have time, I don’t feel like it. That stirs such a sucky feeling in my head. It’s nearly 2 am now, so it’s no surprise my head is feeling weird.

Pam, it’s good to hear you speak of your education plans. Talking them out with some feed back from people will help you make your choice, but it doesn’t have to happen now. Your talk of your plans gets Mandy thinking about her own plans and what she wants to do and accomplish. Maybe you’d want to talk to her to hear how she feels on life plans and give her encouragement.

This is the single funniest thing that happened today.

And then we both felt the impluse to clean the kitchen for an hour!!… For future entries I will try to have more pictures and less words. But for someone who does pictures for a living, a guy’s gotta type, ya know?

Keep jokes. I mean cool. DFTBA.

Too… hot… to think!

Pam,

Hey sister-thingy. You don’t work outside, right? You always work inside. It would be silly to work outside. Because it sucks. Sure you get sunshine, breeze, and fresh air, but then comes the pouring rain and 99 degree heat and humidity in my pants. No, that’s not a joke. I’m wearing slacks in 99 degrees of messy, bored outdoors.

But shorts are on their way. That will make the fact less unbearable that not nearly enough people want to spend twenty bucks a person on a drawing they don’t feel they need. My mood and contentedness unfortunately depends on how many drawings I perform. Obviously, if I do enough, I can make mad money. But even if I don’t break minimum wage, if it keeps a steady flow and I get near quota, I’m satisfied. My supervisor can’t stop complimenting me, too. For a first-artist, I must be surprising him every week. I’ll probably have show you the photos in person by the time you read this.

About “JABBIC Club”, it makes total sense to me. Cuz’ it’s illustration. And I can appreciate that. For that’s why covers and artists are used. For if the book doesn’t sell well, it’s partly the illustrator’s fault. And good illustrators make the essence of a book into one image that tells some story. It’s inclusive and penetrates through the book, possibly only creating a mystery as to why there is a picture of a shoe horn in a jar of peanut butter being held by a dragon claw.

I just ate fried falafal wraps with avocado. Do you like avocado? You should. It has good fats in it. And I needed them as the sun evaporated my fat reserves today.

Ooo! Pam, sorry we had to return it, but get your hands on “Across The Universe” an original movie about Beatles songs. But not The Beatles. And it’s got Eddie Izzard!! We screamed when he popped up. We didn’t know! Very good movie. Pretty long too.

So for today I leave you with this:

Pam, I’ll see you tomorrow.

Freelancing, Subs, and Roleplaying

Dear Pam,

First, commentary on the image above. Is this what all my doodles are going to look like? Not all of them, but it’s a personal challenge of mine to stick to this style, however rough it will get. Much like your dedication to your posts. I expect mine will happen every other day, as to balance my work with Hersheypark, www.neillustrations.com (shameless plug), Blenderman (full of shame), and everything else (not so shameful).

Today started with Zoe latching her claws on my chin and lower lip. This happens quite often. And I’m too sleepy to perceive to get up and feed her or completely throw her off the bed. More like wishful thinking that she’ll get bored.

Got an email about a illustration project I’m not supposed to talk about because I signed a non-disclosure form! Just to project the intellectual rights of the company’s idea and work. So I did some sketches for them to show them what I could do, and they’re asking for more, but I didn’t say I want to charge from here on. So it’s good it’s going somewhere, but where to start? I’ll be talking with them tonight.

We’re venturing to Lancaster today and I’m wrestling with the aukward notion about going into my old Quiznos shop in Lancaster. Either it will be complete strangers, my good friends Mark or Sammy, or the manager… err… yeah.

Then tonight we’re going to a friend’s house to be complete geeks and do a roleplay game about Avatar: The Last Air Bender. Yes, the one on Nickelodeon, but it deserves to be on Adult Swim, it’s that good.

—

So that’s the doodle. It’s either going to be commentary on the day, a random observation about something, or something completely different, like a man with a tape-recorder up his nose

I have a lot I want to reply to and share, but I don’t want to overload my post either.

Pam, I am amazed, probably as much as you are about what Brotherhood 2.0 has done to us and the changes we’re seeing already. Honestly, I’m not used to this language coming out of you saying “you love me” and all these “expressive” things coming out of you. No offense. But that’s why this is happening. So you can show me what goes on in your life that I wouldn’t normally see.

So thank you! I love you too and I’ll be looking forward to all the stuff that comes out of your head.

—

Response to your posts:

• Obama: I’m kinda glad it’s decided. I did vote for him, but that’s just because the thought of the history books going “Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton” weirded me out. And I do believe Hillary is more experienced than Obama, but maybe the US isn’t ready for Clinton. Yes, the man is more intelligent sounding than Bush. That may do wonders for the US image and foreign relations in itself. As for Nerdfighters, Hank Green points out Obama isn’t his favorite environmentally, but he’ll do.

• Love your analysis of the fist bump watched ’round the world.

• You haven’t even been a Nerdfighter two weeks and you’re talking like the brothers!

• Mandy and I totally hear you on the experience of head thoughts and their impact and pain threshold on the creative mind. It’s a sad fact of life. But you’re not alone. In fact, your description of the ‘pain’ is identical to what we feel. So just accept the past, move on… and sleep with your laptop

• Maybe I’ll doodle the thought catcher tomorrow.

• For the “publishing time/timezone” thing, look at the right side when writing. Under “Publish Status” and the checkbox for “keep this post private” it says “Publish immediately EDIT”. Click the edit, and check the time and date it says there. It looks like you’ll want to deduct however many hours off it said was the difference. It says mine is 4 hours off.

There. I’m done, I think. I need to get ready to go out. And I’m sorry I totally wrote 700 words and blew your post out of the hypothetical water. Ha!

Pam, I will read you tomorrow.

Love, Neil