It's been another long while since my last journal and a lot of stuff has happened since then. Where to start? I had a job interview about a week ago. The call came out of the blue and was a really pleasant surprise. I thought it went pretty well but I didn't get the second call-back telling me I got the job unfortunately. I'm a little disappointed but it was nice to at least get a call for an interview after months of not being able to get even that. Back to the seemingly never-ending job hunt for me again.

Me and Professor Awesome went and played a game of D&D earlier this week over at where my middle brother has been staying. Took hours to just get through a few encounters but it was fun though still confusing. Professor Awesome made note cards for me which was a BIG help but while I think I finally got a grasp on how the game actually works mechanically now, I still get overwhelmed by the complexity of it. We had a six-man group going on, bigger than any game I've ever played in, and we were playing by 4.0 rules if anyone was curious. This was Professor Awesome's first game though I've played a little, and died a lot, in the past. We've been talking about it for the past few days and we've decided that we're going to customize a lot of things and make our own Demordicai Diamonds based version. We're definitely going to change things stat-wise now that we have a good idea of just how it all works. I may talk more about it in future journals if we make any good progress with it.

My eldest brother's dog, Rudy, got killed a few days ago. My eldest brother still wouldn't give Rudy away to a home that would actually take care of him and he was adamant in keeping his dog even though he left the dog at my house and he rarely ever seen it or took care of it in anyway. It's a shame but my house is notorious for having animals get killed but Rudy didn't die from the usual cause: the road. The road I live on is out in the country but is a major country road and people drive around 50 - 60mph on it consistently and some of the folks around like to make a sport of running over animals purposely. I found Rudy's mangled corpse in the field past the fence. Our landlord's sons often use the barn near our house and the adjacent fields for their cattle and we have cows often about 35ft or so away from the house at closest. When I was getting chicken eggs from underneath a bush (a chicken coop would have been nice but that's just one fiasco after another), I saw Rudy and called for him but he just laid there out in the fields beyond the fence. When I went to check on him, he was laying very awkwardly with blood coming out his ears and had all the hallmarks of getting stomped on by cows. He was an extremely hyper active dog and would chase anything that moved and I'm figuring he went and decided to chase and harass the cows that are in the fields and the cows didn't take too kindly too that. It's a shame too but my eldest brother absolutely refused to give away his dog and my mother of course took his side (she's guilty of the same thing with her dog, Emmi). I don't like having to bury animals but we pretty much got our own pet cemetery from how many animals the road has claimed but now the cows have a hand in it as well I suppose.

Alright, time for something less gloomy to talk about. How about my future art plans? And boy do I got more art plans than what I normally do. I apologize for the lack of new art recently, my sudden job interview and Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask kept me away from art (I finally beat it and got all the masks too and I really enjoyed that Zelda game, unlike the latest retarded installments). Plan-wise, I got three main art projects I'm going to be working on in the coming days. One is the next page of Demordicai Diamonds. Me and Professor Awesome already have it scripted and it's ready to be worked on. Chapter 2 is almost done though at my current rate it's still going to be a while before it wraps up. I'm really excited to finally be done with this chapter after having spent so much time stuck in it. If I really worked hard on it, I could possibly be done by the end of the year but as you all probably know, I'm REALLY slow with comic pages and that outcome is probably very unlikely at best. Still, Chapter 2 is pretty damn close to being finished.

My second project is one I decided on after finishing up my latest character concept art of Rebecca. I think I'm finally ready to move on to full scenes now that I have a good idea what a good handful of upcoming characters look like. There are still plenty that need to be conceptualized or refined some more but I got a good amount to work with for now. I already got some plans for some full scenes that may have two or more characters (with full background as well) but each one is probably going to take me a while. If there is any characters you'd like me to prioritize art for that you'd like to see more of, let me know and I'll see what I can do. I got plenty of ideas to choose from churning in my head and plenty room for some more. I haven't started on anything yet but I plan to sometime in the relatively near future.

My third art project is both an old and a new one. Me and Professor Awesome have been talking for a long time on the topic of religion in the world of Demordicai Diamonds and we've been trying to figure out just what we want to do with it. We want something that seems to naturally fit and isn't an allegory to something else or just a copy/paste with a name change of something else. After much discussion and and a final 6 hour phone call on the topic, we figured out a rough idea of the direction we are going to go in with religion and I came up with a new art project along with it. It's going to be a story and illustration type of project detailing parts of backstory, such as origin, of many different Fates (sorta like demi-gods) that some people worship and some people detest though it is often more individual-specific Fate-wise than just grouping them all together. I can go into more detail with that general topic if anyone would like to hear it as it wouldn't really be too much of spoilers. So the Fate I'm planning on starting out with is the meddlesome ikeeri Fate (more specifically of the felkri race of ikeeri,commonly distinguished by red, orange, yellow, and brownish colored fur) of...-sigh-...love and fertility, Myra. I'm laughing about it really. Her origin tale is a bit absurd, and sorta, umm, "unique" and definitely caters more toward an ikeeri sense of humor/interest rather than a drakune's.. I choose to start off with Myra because she's, fortunately or unfortunately, by far the most developed religious icon deity-ish character that Demordicai Diamonds has at the moment. I'm actually recycling a REALLY old idea and some old art and making it new and improved with her but I will probably do a character concept of her first before I officially start the story and illustration part of this project. Lol, this project is going to be different alright. Felkri lore is silly and weird.

I got lots of art planned and it's been a wonderful day out today so I've been already at work on some stuff. My dad is going to be having some time off soon and I fear/hope that we'll be working on fixing up the bathroom soon. It's discomforting to be sitting on the toilet and having to worry about whether the whole bathroom floor is going to collapse into the basement. It's not very stable and the wood has been rotting for a long time and I think it might even be the original flooring of this old house. If my dad does want to begin work on it, it might be another week before I am able to post any new art since I'll be at my house without a scanner. But even if that's going to be the case, by that time I may have a good amount already done and ready to post after me and my dad repair the bathroom (assuming he doesn't quit halfway through like usual and then the bushes become the new bathroom).

So that's what's been going on with me and what I'm planning on working on in the next coming days.