In my last news post, I mentioned I was going to place one of those little salt and charcoal moisture collection thingies by my Art Desk. I figured it'd help some to drop the general humidity in my room so I could work a while without my paper getting puffy. Well... it's not working as I planned.

It's doing its job and pulling moisture from the air but there is Way more than I bargained for. You can see the results from a little over a week's use here. -> [It's Bad]

So, I'm currently stuck not being able to safely work on the strip. This doesn't mean I'm not working, though. I've decided to use this long high humidity streak to work on my digital stuff. To get used to the tools I have (Figure out the quirks of my Tablet PC, learn the newer tools I have access to and whatnot) and try to build that familiarity that comes from actual use. I'm working on a larger sized piece - about the size and DPI I scan the strip in at - and you can see that pic slowly coming together over on my Instagram (and the various places I send all that stuff out to).

Quirks I've found that have made their way into my Digital work:

- After using the eraser on the stylus, I have a habit of brushing off phantom eraser bits from my screen. I guess this is akin to the digital artist "hitting" Ctrl-Z on paper.

- Despite knowing the functions in SketchBook to rotate the canvas on-the-fly, I will still physically rotate my Tablet PC thingie instead.

- If I'm not careful, my left hand will Always find the power button. Without fail, I will get in the groove and Bam! My screen goes dark and I'm in Sleep Mode.

So! That's the news for now. Until the weather in my area lets up, I'm stuck working on digital stuff. Not fantastic news, I know... But! I Am doing work and I Will keep folks up-to-date on it in the meantime.

'Till next time.

Since the last post, my art stuff has been in pretty rough shape. My strip book - the place where I draw all this strangeness - was chosen in part for how well it takes ink. It's great. Inks dry quick and I rarely have to worry too badly about smearing or all of the ink lifting up when erasing. It takes inks up like a sponge. It's not perfect but it's good at what it does.

A little Too good.

See... it's been either very humid or raining since the last strip was finished. I had some issues with the paper puffing up pretty badly due to the amount of water it took in from the air. My Art desk is in the best spot in the room - right next to the window - so it was in as direct a line for as much of that excess moisture as you could get without just being outside.

This means my normally heavy handed sketching goes from putting a bit of a dent on the page to making a visible groove in the paper. If I mess up or want to change something, I have to scrap the whole page instead of just erasing things. Inks stay longer on the surface and has a higher chance of lifting off during cleanup. Instead of chancing it, I waited for it to dry out.

And I waited. And waited. And drew a new Shark Week Aftermath pic on paper that I thankfully keep stored away and didn't have to worry about all this mess with. -> [Art LinkTastic!]

My strip book finally dried out tonight (That would be 8/05/2018) and in true "I NEED TO WORK!!" fashion, I ended up inking it in a little over an hour. = )

Now I'm going to get the rest of the comic-related fun stuff out of the way and maybe get something to eat. As for the last batch of problems, I'm taking steps to mitigate stuff like having one of those little salt-based moisture capture containers between my window and my Art desk. The next step is risking my air conditioner on what's already a strained power circuit so... let's hope the bucket thingie keeps working.

'Till next time! = D