The Ilsa Show - Updates Fridays!

Agh, sorry about no updates twice in a row. Last Friday, I had a bunch of work to do, and my grandparents came over, and I had the beginnings of a bladder infection. Yesterday, I forgot to take my meds and my whole ay was weird. Today, I remembered to take my meds, but I still feel crappy. But I drew a thing! I think I will work on it a bit more and then post it.

I can’t really seem to think straight right now, so see you later.

Yes, that last conversation actually happened - in fact, that’s almost verbatim. Me and Piper (my best friend) are nerds…

Spent a lot of time on this one. Happy with how it came out, though.

I need to eat lunch now. See you next week!

That’s never a good question.

I’ve been training to learn parkour, and I’m scratched to hell. And I’m sore. Now where the hell are my ninja powers?!

Not much else to say. See you next Friday.

I started a new training regimen, and it’s kicking my ass. In fact, today was almost a derp day, but I thought of this instead.

I’m going to go lay down now.

Shop class protective gear… Well, it’s very thorough.

New on my list of things I hate drawing: speed lines.

This was hard to draw and took… 3 1/2 hours? Blech.

I’m not even sure if this is funny anymore.

See you next Friday.

Sorry about the lack of comic yesterday. I spent all day cleaning. Also, I couldn’t think of anything funny.

I know this has been happening a lot lately, and I’m sorry. But there is an underlying reason: I’m not passionate about the comic anymore.

For several reasons: 1.) No one cares. My fans are mostly my friends and family, and a few random Internet people. 2.) I’m not getting paid. But mostly, 3.) I’m BORED.

There’s something, I think, about the creative process, that makes this happen. The initial rush fades out. But that’s the same process that makes you creative in the first place- you get easily bored, so you start to make stuff up.

I am NOT shutting down the comic. Far from it - I think I might be adding to it. 

You see, I’ve been getting a creative itch for awhile. I need to start drawing stories. I was having trouble figuring out what to do until I remembered a short story I wrote a few years back. I took a Writing Short Stories class, and that story was the only one I liked. So I thought, “hey, I’ll draw that.” Unfortunately, drawing stories means big pages. Which means it’ll take awhile. But I think what I’ll do is draw it by hand in my spare time, then redraw it on the computer. And shade it. And color it. Oh god, I’m a masochist.

Also, I’d like to have my own website. I’ve actually wanted to do that from the beginning— tumblr was always a temporary measure. Because that way, the comic not only has its own site, but I can also have a gallery of things I’ve drawn or made.

However, those things are going to take time, and until then, I’m pushing updates to once a week. I think I’m actually going to update on Fridays, since this quarter I have that day off.

I might also veer the comic in a new direction, where I actually start to make stuff up. Go from reality to fiction.

All of this is very up-in-the-air right now, of course. I’m not really sure where it’s going to land.  But that’s what excites me. I’m doing something NEW.

But until I figure out what the hell I’m doing, updates Fridays.

Oh God, I’m making puns in my sleep O_O

I re-read http://www.dominic-deegan.com/ recently, and I think Mookie infected me with a punasite. (Get it? Pun Parasite?) If I’m making puns WHILE DREAMING, then clearly the infection is in its later stages.

That being said, you should still read it. It’s extremely good.

This one ~4 hours, mostly because of the first panel. I hate city scenes. I like my Hippie Monk though. Maybe he will show up in other things.

And hey, I can draw dreadlocks now! It only took a solid hour of research and experimentation. DAMN YOU DRAKE.

Yes, that’s his name. A black guy named Drake. It’s probably the least weird thing there is in that city.

I think this might end up being a new segment. I have a lot of strange dreams.

This happens way more than it should. It actually messes with my drawing ability, as you saw yesterday.

2 1/2 hours?

Drawing a facepalm is kind of hard. Thankfully, I had plenty of reference material.

Now I must go sort my laundry. Yay.

Yeah, even my drawing is off today. This is the best I could do.

I know what messed me up - I forgot to take my meds yesterday, so when I took them today, it made me all screwy. My ability to think is pretty impaired, as evidenced by the art.

I’m not even sure this is funny.

Sorry. Most likely tomorrow’s comic will be better.

This is totally true. Did I mention I have some self-esteem issues?

Thankfully my freakout was short-lived. Never underestimate kitty therapy.

You may have noticed the quality of the strips this weekend is better. That is because I added a step in my process. See, normally, I have 4 layers: outline, figure, background, and speech bubbles. Outline is in red, the rest are in black. Well, I added another outline layer in blue - where I actually draw the over the outline. Then on the other layers I draw over outline 2 to get considerably less messy lines.

I hope that makes sense, it’s kinda hard to describe. If anyone asks, I’ll upload a tutorial or something. Again, I write about my process because I always find it helpful when my favorite artists wrote about theirs.

Anyways, it didn’t add much time, still ended up being about 2-3 hours. And I’m much happier with the outcome.

Anyways, see you on Saturday!