As you’re probably aware, the Amber comic has now reached a year without an update. For those who don’t know already, Amber herself has been gone from the community for a while now. Despite that, I still have plans to finish the comic, (if nothing else then at least for the fan base.)

So what’s been keeping me from producing new pages?

School and Work.

This is probably the biggest reason. I’ve been working an average of 30 hours a week at my job, give or take 5 hours. I’ve also been taking 3 to 4 classes per quarter. According to my adviser, that amounts to a 70 hour per week time commitment. I don’t know about that, but I do know that I nearly killed my self with a full load last spring. It all paid off though. After a decade of starting college strong, screwing around, and then getting serious about my education, I’m finally just a couple dozen units from graduation. I’ll be taking those classes spread out over the next year, so I should be less busy during that time.

Origami

Over the last year I been mastering a new form of art, the ancient Japanese art of paper folding, both traditional and modern styles.

Here are some examples:
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Look a centipede:
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Travian
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This online game is a terrible time sink. (Because of that I don’t recommend it.) Also it's addictive. It’s sort of a MMORTS. Thousands of human players start with a single village. You build your village, train armies, manage resources, found new villages or conquer the villages of other players. Combat basically consists of a countdown timer indicating travel time followed by calculations and a result report is generated. It can literally take hours or even days to build or travel.

In theory this should allow you to check in a couple times a day, build a few things and live your life. The intro page even makes it sound like it’s possible to play it as a sort of medieval SimCity crossed with a social network. In reality, it’s mainly an excuse for shut-ins who are on 24/7 to crush smaller players. Most player join alliances for protection, as well as working towards endgame which happens after a year on each server.

Guitar

Yeah that’s right, I took up the guitar. I found a guitar where I work that was broken. Using wood glue I managed to fix it, and, following an instruction manual I found, I started learning to play it. The guitar instructor who teaches at the center I work at was impressed that I learned so much on my own. He hooked me up with a good deal on an acoustic guitar. Hey, if I become proficient with this one I might pick up an electric one too.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Just the latest of the various animated series/comics that I’ve gotten into or rediscovered. I picked up the box set for all three seasons.

Plants vs. Zombies
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This is a kick ass take on the tower defense game. You have a lawn, various plants that attack, defend or support, and a horde of zombies coming for your brains. I unlocked all the achievements already, but it’s still fun to play.

Happy New Year everyone

I know there have been some delays with the comic. And a lot people have been asking me pretty much the same questions over and over. And I sometimes don’t have time to go through all my pages and address them all. So this journal entry will be a one-stop for questions and answers. If something gets asked repeatedly or I feel it’s important enough, I’ll add the answer to the list below.

For now here’s my list:

1) Q - Are you going to continue the Amber’s Dreams comic?

A - Yes, the comic has just been delayed is all. I’m still working on it and I do plan to complete it.

2) Requests for prints of some of my drawings.

I’m sorry, but I don’t know how the print system works. I just started noticing these requests mixed in with the watches and favorites I get. If you have requested a print of one of my drawings, could you please leave a message so I know what you’re asking for?

There seems to be a bit of confusion concerning the subject of my comic. So to clear things up, Amber is not a character I invented. (In fact, even if she was, she wouldn’t be originally my creation.) The truth is she an actual real life person about whom the comic is based. Hope that clears things up.


Right now I’m buried under school and work. When I find the time to draw again I’ll be focusing exclusively on Dreams until its completion. After that I’ll handle any other requests.


Full Requests & Reposts Guidelines:
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Full Requests & Reposts Guidelines:
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A note on my request timetable:
In case anyone is wondering how long it takes me to complete the drawings on my To Draw List, the truth is I can’t say. Sometimes things I don’t foresee come up, like real life, and that can delay my drawing schedule.

I’m working through the current batch of requests relatively quickly. At my fastest, I can complete drawings at a rate of two per week. Granted, these last ones were requested back in October. The longest I’ve ever made a requester wait is around five months. But that doesn’t mean recently made requests won’t get done till July.

I do try to let everyone who makes a request know that there could be a wait, as well as a line. This doesn’t mean I’ve said no to your request (though I think some have taken it that way). It just means that there is a wait. But I understand if you don’t want to wait.

Btw, the last pages of Amber’s Dreams are going to be done in two batches. So anyone who makes a request now is going to end up on the other side of six comic pages in line.
Just so long as you’re aware.

1/2/2007
Happy New Year

Requests & Reposts Guidelines:
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Some of you may have noticed the continuing washed out colors of the last few pages of Amber’s Dreams. Originally I thought it was me, but it now turns out it was my scanner. As you can see from the comparison of these two images, my old scanner is not picking up color at all like it used to. Any new scanner I get will have to be as good or better than the first image in quality of its scans.
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Well I bought a new scanner last week to replace the old one. I was happy at first, but now think I spent too much for the wrong scanner. This scanner was $50-60 more than its little brother. Both models appeared to have the same quality dpi scanning ability. I'm pretty sure the cheaper one could also do legal size documents. But I went with the more expensive one because the area size of the box was bigger. I was hopping this meant the scan bed was larger, and I might be able to start doing drawing on some of my artist pads instead on printer paper all the time. There wasn’t a floor model in the store at the time, so it wasn’t until I got home that I found out it would only scan letter size documents. Turns out I paid extra for a feature to scan film negatives and slides that I’m never going to use. The guy at the store was no help either. I’m usually more careful about these things, but I wanted to get a new scanner so badly.
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I was just going to return it a buy another model, sometime this Friday maybe, but my uncle gave me another option. He had an old scanner/printer/fax he was getting rid of. It even has a document feeder for the scanner so I could in theory scan a bunch of pages at once. Just the printer is broken, but I have my own printer I can use. The thing is huge also, like one and half times the size of an old school 17’ CRT Monitor. The test scan I got out of it was a pleasing lighter shade. But it’s also not a true color scan, and I don’t know if that’s enough to justify keeping it, even though it’s free, because it takes up so much of the desk.
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So I’m posting samples for you guys to be the judge, or to offer suggestions. I plan on redoing pages 18-20 once I get a scanner I’m happy with