Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Happy New Year from James

Hope Christmas was enjoyable and New Year proves eventful in a positive manner. Of course it brings up that ugly, ugly question of New Years Resolutions. Personally, my humbug Christmas attitude extends to New Years. I don't like going out on New Year (it's too much hassle to sort out and ultimately a let down) and I don't like trying to make character changes on the basis of, well, social tradition. I like my character evolution to be a little more flexible thanks.

That being said, I need to make sure I follow through with a few strict codes. First and foremost, sort out that bloody tax return. Second, sort out some sample illustrations I've been promising a potential client. Good lord, I've been putting that one off, simply through workload. Well, not just workload, work-style. Over the past few months, aside from a couple of commissions, I've been largely computer based in my art work - working on in-game material. When you get into that mode of working, going back to the pencil is hard. Really hard. One of those commissions I did while working on the video games wasn't a hard project in theory - I'd even worked for the people in question before doing the same stuff, but after time away from a drawing board, boy was it hard to do. So yeah, call it a "new years resolution" or a prompt "kick up the arse", but there is one piece of work I have to get started otherwise the client will look elsewhere and my bank account will suffer. Third, I need to finish the reviews for Toon Zone. A book review and a DVD review, both of which I've been back-burnering the last few months. Simply because I've been too tired between the illustration, art department and of course BacktoFrankBlack. But I will do it. This week.

Reflectively, I think New Year Resolutions are a great way to give yourself a posterior bat back into gear on specific jobs, but as anything that's meant to last the year - best get a shrink dear boy.

To finish off, a video montage of one of my favourite franchises - Final Fantasy 7 - to one of my favourite songs, Evil by Interpol.

Happy New Year.