No Shortcuts

Ever since I joined Pottermore and was sorted into Hufflepuff, much to my initial surprise and disappointment, (I've since come to terms with my placement and embraced it) I've wanted to make a comic about it. I mean, what better premise than a girl who hates sunshine, plants, and yellow who is thrown into an environment filled with all three?

Unfortunately, I was not blessed with the artistic bug - at least not visually - and my sister, the artist of the family, is busy with her own projects, so mine fell by the wayside.

Until last week when I decided I'd give it a shot. Hence my absence...

I mapped out the first comic completely. So it was on the back of a library receipt, it didn't have to be perfect, right? Here's basically what the first panel looked like.

Then I took it to paper.

I figured I should be able to sketch out my comic then photograph/scan it in and do only minor tweaking. Thing is, I'm a little too much of a perfectionist and my 'minor tweaking' turned into completely re-tracing it. Which would be fine, if I had a tablet or something, but no, I just have a standard mouse.

So there I was, panel one completed, except for the text. It had only taken 8 hours.

Yeah, 8 hours.

UGH! At that rate, it was going to take forever. Might as well scrap it.

But then I thought, maybe I could streamline everything, just use the line and circle tools to cut out some of the steps. And then I'd be ahead of the next panel through the magic of copy/paste.

So I started over and came up with this.

Not very pretty. And the real kicker is that it took me just as long to do! And I'm still not happy with it.

Serves me right for looking for shortcuts and still expecting quality work.

Now I just have to decide if I'm still willing to put the effort in, or if I should scrap it and leave it scrapped. Why does XKCD make it look so easy?!

S is for Speed

If you've been following my blog for the past, oh, couple weeks at least, you've probably noticed that in my reviews I include my Approximate Reading Time for each book. And, if you've paid attention to any of my times, you've probably caught on that I'm not the speediest of readers.

Sure, I can usually finish a book in a night, two if it's longer or more complex, but I'm not what I'd call a speed-reader. My mom, for example, can finish a 300pg romance in a couple hours (with the TV on). I'd clock my own speed at about...double read-aloud speed. Pretty slow, yeah. But I was quite content with my own speed for a long time.

Then I entered college...and had 4-5 classes all expecting tons of reading. One of my lit classes actually expected an entire classic book (think As the Sun Rises, or Absalom, Absalom) read in a week. Now I wished I could read faster. But, even with the professor's encouragement that 'skimming is okay,' I could never do it.

Skimming a book is like watching a movie on mute. Sure, you get the gist of things, but there's a whole other level of depth that you're missing out on. The mood, the environment, the tension... I can't ever reach that when I skim.

Suffice it to say, I fell behind a lot in class readings.

Now that I read on my own time, a part of me still wishes that I could blaze through a book in a couple hours. There's so much else I want to do—want to read—that being able to read and review a book before midnight would be great!

And yet...I've found that my slower pace affords me a few perks too. For one, there's that mood thing I talked about earlier. Sometimes the pacing of a book is breakneck on its own, and other times it's slow and sensual—I like being able to tell the difference. For another, I actually remember just about everything I read. My mom, on the other hand, can barely name the characters of some of the books she reads (and not out of complexity, either).

So, I guess I can't crank out a book review every day or two (or not even once a week [lately]). And, I guess my Approximate Reading Times might be off... But at least I'm enjoying myself!

Alright, how fast do you read? Are you a skimmer? Or do you savor each and every word?

Some S Books I've Read:

A Spiritual S Group:

The S Font: