4 posts from October 2009

Super Secret Project Teaser!

Oct 19, 2009
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This is a teaser for the super secret project I'm working on.

Enjoy.

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Prompt - Where do you see yourself in five years?

Stepping outside into the bright sun, I shield my eyes and groan. Daylight never had been my prefered light of choice. Not unless I were using it in my work. Like today.

"Quit yer bellyachin," the man beside me says with a grin. I groan again in reply as I fumble around in my pocket for a pair of sunglasses.

I don't get out much. My work takes up most of my time. Staring at the screen in a darkened room, watching as the colors melt together in Photoshop before sending them on to another artist for the next stage in the image's development. But I don't care where it goes. Because another one is sent to me, and I put the colors in, and send it on.

I'm a cog in the great wheel of progress. Just another gear in a well oiled machine cranking out cartoon after cartoon.

I feel a tug on my sleeve. I look up, and it's the same one that spoke to me before. The same man who'd dragged me out of the safety of my appartment. Enticed me with free food and drink at a company picnic if only I'd just come with him. He doesn't have many friends in the office.

Neither do I. I like it that way.

It keeps me happy, actually, in my own morbid way. My friends outside of work, from the older days in highschool thought I was mad when I told them I wanted to intern as a color artist for an animation studio. Any stuido would do. Any of them that would take me that is. It would afford me a certain level of privacy. I could control what details people knew about me, and I could project to my coworkers a version of me that was polite and nice, one everyone could get along with. And in this way, I could learn the things I needed to learn. Perhaps get a more steady job once the internship was finished.

But the important thing was the experience, not the office friendships and personal relationships I could create.

He's tugging my sleeve again. I roll my eyes behind my sunglasses and I give off that false smile that they have only ever seen from me. He's speaking again, and I'm nodding as we're heading over to get some cold drinks.

The day is hot, and it looks like I'm the only one wearing jeans. But that's alright. I don't intend to do any running or three legged races any time soon. We find a table and sit, watching as some of the others who'd brought their families take part in the festivities. I sip my drink. Ah...

An ice cold Mountain Dew. My favorite.

I talk nice with my day's unwanted companion. Making small talk about work and the weather and various favorite horror movies. How we got on that topic, I do not quite remember. I think it may have something to do with work. I remember coloring a set of panels last week with a rather gory death scene. It was boring work now that I think about it.

As the day wears on, and I find myself talking to other people that I didn't even know worked with me, I'm also finding that I may just be the only one feeling lacklustre about my job. Then again, I may not be the only one acting out a nice charade just to get the ordeal over with as quietly as possible.

I've always hated working for other people. I figured that out about myself five years ago when I went back to school. I'd told myself back then that five years later I'd have my own studio, my own series of books and cartoons. None of that has come to pass. I have miscalculated my goals.

No matter. Five years later I have none of that. But what I do have is putting me in the right direction. With the experience I am getting here at Hawthorne Pictures, I'll be able to make it on my own in time.

It's just taking a little longer than I had initially expected.

Dusk is falling now. My day's companion has returned boastng a ribbon for some contest. Hotdog eating, I believe. I'm just finishing off a bowl of macaroni salad and another Mountain Dew. Fireworks are next, I know. And I throw away my trash and come back to him.

I've taken my sunglasses off and put them in my pocket. There's no need for them now that darkness is nearing. I excuse myself, saying that I've got to get up early in the morning for work. He tells me everyone's got to get up early for work. I tell him I've gotten backed up in my work, and will need to get there early to catch up. I don't want to put everyone else behind schedule.

He calls me a stick in the mud. And I laugh, that same forced polite laugh they have ever heard come from me. I bid him good night, and he reminds me that he's the one that gave me a ride.

I remind him of the Cardiff public transportation system, and that I can easily enough catch a cab.

On my way home, I mentally relive the events of the day. I'd had fun, for my part. Though I may have seemed a stick in the mud, I had my own fun in my own way. The ride to my stop is short, and I climb off the bus to begin the walk home.

I find myself suprised by the weather. Unusually dry. The crispness of the air is no suprise, but the lack of rain is. It had been raining every day during the week, and then, suddenly dry as a bone today. Almost as if mother nature had spilled out all her tears before the day of the picnic and then allowed his work-family the day to themselves without interruption.

The walk home doesn't take long. I search my pockets for my keys. Find that I had left them somewhere. I try to recall if I'd put them into my pocket before I left. Stupidly I realize that I hadn't. I check my watch, hoping my flatmates are in. The time isn't that late, at least one should still be around.

I hit the buzzer for my flat, and I wait. No response. I hit the buzzer again and wait. On the fourth try, I finally hear an answer.

"Forgot my keys, let me up."

"What?"

I grumble then try again. "I left my keys, moron! Let me in!"

I hear a laugh. It had to be her... I've two flatmates. One girl, one boy. It was the only way I could afford to move all the way to Wales from Florida. Split the rent with a couple of mates. Well, a mate and his mate. "Come on!"

I hear the buzzer, and quickly grab the door. Once inside, I climb the stairs. The elevator's been out for weeks. I don't think anyone's ever going to get around to fixing it. Three floors up, and I'm at my door. I turn the knob, hoping she left it unlocked for me.

She did, and I let myself in. I hear laughing comming from the back. I frown. It sounds like it's comming from my room. This wasn't uncommon, since I was the one who had my own computer. There was another, in the tv room, but it was broken, and like the elevator I didn't know if it would ever get fixed. I knew how, I just never really had the time to deal with it.

I go to the kitchen to fix myself some tea. I always like a cuppa before bed. When I start to head back towards my room, I hear a shout.

"It looks just like him!"

My frown turns to a scowl as I steel myself for kicking my flatmate and her friends out of my room. I need to get some sleep before work in the morning. When I open the door, I freeze as a head turns to look at me.

"You did this?"

I don't quite understand what the girl is asking. I know she's one of my flatmate's friends. Mentally I try to recall her name, but before I have the chance to finish, she speaks again. "This is really good! You should send this off to BBC or somethink."

"W...W...what?"

I creep in closer to try and see what she's talking about, and I can feel my skin crawl as I realize in horror what they've found.

My flatmate looks at me, and I can tell she's trying not to laugh. "I knew you was a geek, but I didn't know you were a Doctor Who nut." She gives me a look that I can't quite place.

I try my best to get them to leave, but they want to keep watching my computer. Finally, I give up and leave them to it. What harm are they really doing, anyway. I'd heard them laughing. So it wasn't as if I could really be even more embarrassed.

I go to the tv room and try to watch a bit of telly while they're in my room, mocking my attempts at animation. An hour passes when I realize that I don't have that much completed for them to laugh at and watch. I get up and start back down the hallway.

The girls have migrated to my flatmate's room. Most of them. A few hung back at my computer for heaven only knows why. Now that it's only a few, I think I may be able to get them out of here. I try.

"Are you going to finish it?"

"What?"

"Your cartoon. Are you going to finish it? It's really good."

I shrug. "Yeah, eventually." I scratch the back of my head with a hessitant smile. "So... How, uh..."

"YouTube," she said without warning. "I don't see why you're wasting your time doing grunt work when you can do stuff like this."

"Uh... well... you see...."

I am sufficiently flustered, and stammering at them before I finally just stop talking. When they left my room, I stared at my computer screen at my unfinished project. It wasn't my first animation I'd done on my own. I had a few others, geek themed of course, posted on YouTube. But under a user name I didn't think anyone that knew me would be able to puzzle out.

Unfortunately... I'd left myself logged in. The rest... well the logic trail had been obvious to follow.

As I shut down my computer, and then climb into bed, I stare at the ceiling and sigh. It's been a strange day with strange things. Odd thoughts and nostalgia somewhat.

I look back again to five years ago, to the moment I had decided to set foot on this trail. I'd told them all then I had wanted to move to Cardiff, make cartoons, and someday get famous from it.

Well, at this point in time I have accomplished two of those three things.

If that group of girls enjoyed my cartoons so much, then maybe I had a shot. Maybe she was right, and I should leave Hawthorne Pictures and make it on my own. Lose the job security my internship provides for me currently and take a big risk.

I roll over and decide to remain with Hawthorne for now. The experience is what I need right now. It's a cutthroat business, especially when smaller companies have to compare to giants like Disney and Pixar and Dreamworks. Not to mention all of those companies dotting the islands of Japan.

No, I'll stay where I am and take security over risk for now. After all, I've got five more years to think about where I'm going next. Five years is just a halfway mark. Ten is the real kicker.

QotD: Best-Seller

Oct 19, 2009
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If you were going to write a book, what would you write about?

I have written books. I just haven't published them... yet. They're a hodgepodge of sci-fi/fantasy/modern/horror.... stuff.

Lots of random STUFF.

Like.... Dragons, vampires, shapeshifting demons, angels that kick butt, the inner workings of Hell, an artist/musician who can control shadows and his demonic boyfriend/husband-ish thing who's a dehtroned prince of hell.... that kinda thing.

New Banner Up.

Oct 14, 2009
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The new banner's up. It was created for me by Z. n.n She's fuckin awsome yousguys.

That is all for now. still working on the top secret project, as well as my icons site. dribble is forthcomming.

Two things.

Oct 14, 2009
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1. I need to make another dribbly post here. I'm getting around to it. Sorry for the lack of updates. It's been due to a few things, really. Fanfic writing, my personal mental state, and various other personal things I'm not going to spill out here. It's not the place to do so.

2. I'm going to be changing the banner/header here again. It's just time that i do that. So don't be suprised. I'm also changing links to the side to updated projects and such.

okay, I lied. Three things....

3. Wait.... I forgot what that third thing was. So here, have this instead. It has to do with a top secret project I'm working on with Z (again.)