Screw It

Time to instigate a new low. One Arms and Ether per day for the remainder of February. But with 0 percent artistic aspiration, 0 percent quality, 0 percent human insight. Lots of complaining, pointless vulgarity, and overall shoddiness. This is going to fail miserably.

In other insights.

1. Time to update/rethink this whole web thing. I'd like to integrate all of my class websites with this site andArms and Ether. Will also include online work and animation. It'll probably look like a scummy "e-zine" or something. It'll be pedestrian and un-revolutionary. Too bad. Love and adulation will not follow from it, nor will self-respect and joy. It won't be a "blog, " but rather a "thing available to the good people of this world through the mighty, yet little understood power of electricity."

2. Samuel Palmer? Samuel Palmer. Props to Linus Meldrum for pointing him out to me as a young man. Crap, I've probably squandered what should have been my Shoreham period. Oops. Fucked that up good and proper, but at least I know how to do roll-over buttons in Flash instead.

Samuel Palmer, Cornfield by Moonlight, c1830

So, look for the first "low quality" daily Arms and Ether beginning tomorrow. My rule will be to post whatever I have 'fore sundown. No late night vision quests for me. Just uptight horror in the full light of day.

Midweek Preview

What fabulous fragment is this unearthed 'neath Chronos' bones? Tune in Monday, January 26, 2009 for the latest installment of Arms and Ether. Fanfare. Garlands. Dancing. Physiognomy.

Got some decent drawing done this morning after waking up from a nightmare at 5 a.m. Lots to think and draw about these days. Time to work up some Maya magic for class this afternoon. Need more coffee. Liquid courage.

Lots of ideas percolating for the "hard launch" Arms and Ether rollout. The button thing in yesterday's post has got me thinking about a far more phantasmagorical website. I'll burn in hellfire for it, but since I can do it, why not? I'm like Shatner or Anthony Hopkins in that way. Sure, I can act, but I can sing too! Holy @#$%^#$%&* I'd never actually SEEN the Shatner Rocket Man before. Go. Now. See. Believe.

God knows when the Arms and Ether "hard-launch" will happen, though. Realistically, I'm thinking summer, and why not? A rocket. . . man.

Monday

A brief post in honor of the long-lost snow that has been so blow-torched from our lands this weekend. Farewell. Return with your ghosts, your stars and your bearded pumpkins. . . I love you. . .

And thanks for any and all Arms and Ether comments. I'm still collecting them, so keep 'em coming. As they come in, I add them to the Feedbag post. One comment I had in conversation was "don't you want to find a way to tie all this stuff (blog, strip, etc) together?" A good question. The answer is yes, but feels complicated--I'm hoping for an organic evolution in that direction. But what comes from mere hope? More later, obviously.

Time to pass out. Fighting off a lil' sinus infection and the 9-year-olds, pizza and ice cream cake have taken their toll. Tomorrow is Sam's actual 9th birthday (groovy) and L'inauguration. Let's get it on.

Latest Arms and Ether is up!

Ta-rah. Getting ideas together for site redesign too. As usual, I'd appreciate any feedback on Arms and Ether you may care to give. Sam's 9th birthday party is tomorrow--yay! Otherwise, phew, I'm a little tired. Oh, and the Namecheap.com webhosting is setting me back $5.88 a month or $70.00/year. Seems like a decent enough deal. I still haven't moved the site over yet, however.

Feedbag

I'm going to be posting folks' feedback on Arms & Ether here, so I can reflect on it all at once when I start the serious re-design work in the coming weeks. So comment here, or email any and all suggestions. Keep it coming and thanks!

* The easiest one that I tend to appreciate a lot is a "back to the beginning of the series" button. I tend to be the reader who likes to start at the very beginning and see the progression/evolution of the series.
The second idea is purely aesthic. It might be a good way of introducing a newcomer to the site by having the cast of characters(or the "main" characters that appear the most) stationed on the sides of the site(in the very light gray area). The immediate examples that I can think of are Chris Sanders' banner on Kiskaloo and the top banner on the online Maakies. You wouldn't even necessarily need to redraw the characters---you could just pull some of the cast from previously drawn strips and collage them together.

* I am enjoying the comic (both of them!!!!!!) but the layout is as rough as the dude's delicious garbage is small. The left-sided infobar is distracting, as is the closeness of repetition the A&E logo... Maybe drop all that junk down below? Just peeking out of the bottom of the page?

Φ Run more white space in between title of comic and the border

Φ Center the strip

Φ Be rid of gray background

* One thing I felt funny on was the side bar, I like the slanting, sideways text...but something about their size and position felt funny to me, mabye their placement in the long gray box (shrugs) I dont know, the site is awesome

New Arms & Ether!

There's a new Arms and Ether strip out today. My god, that makes a grand total of two strips. . . and they're linked together (gasp!). Check it out here: armsandether.com. Tell your friends. Also, I'd appreciate ANY feedback folks have on the early stages of the design of the site, things you'd like to see, busted links, etc. As I said, I'm aiming for a "hard" launch by Feb 1. Though. . . I may be reconsidering that date. I think I might just CTFO and get some momentum going with the strips--focus on the actual creative process for a while and find that groove.

Also, click the image to take an idiotic stroll past the French Folke factory. It was a class demo, okay? So don't get so huffy.

Finally thanks to the 8Bit Ghost for his web help. If you haven't been by lately, he's got Hugo, Big Jim and a post about his wonderful/horrible "dotcom-mobile."

Web Design-Nein!

When I use the web, I feel like, "I know where I'm going, so get the @#$% out of my way." I'll respect that attitude for the Arms and Ether site. I'll let the art be complicated.

A Day o' Infamy

Geekin' with the 8-bit Ghost down at school today. It's dark and cold. We're talking 'bout how to teach, learn, live, and by consequence, love. I'm getting some good ideas for teaching the Art 351 Interactive Studio class this winter. Also, some thoughts on how to "roll out" the Arms and Ether comic. Bully for us.
In a fatherly sphere, Sam and I went to throw a baseball around, and he ended up with the mother of all split lips. :( It did give me the opportunity to introduce him to the manly world of the laconic statement, however. Kirk Gibson's comment after getting smashed in the face by a fastball, "It's not something you'd hope for."
L'image above shows recent head studies of "Big Evan" Carroll I did while thinking about comic book character design.

God help us all. It's milesinada.com

Yes, I finally got my URL act together. So type milesinada.com, inadaville.com or armsandether.com into your preferred web browser, and you will be magically transported here. The reason for all of this foolishness (and my web silence) is I'm gearing up for an internet invasion and an online Arms and Ether comic strip. Ultimately, those URLs will link to a new Arms and Ether "web site." More to come as things develop. I'm pretty manic depressive about the whole thing right now. It's great! It's horrible! Yes! No! etc. More as the creative cycle sputters on. Oops, time for a critique with "the kids."

Reflective n' @#$%

I worked on the web site today putting together the Legends From Camp storyboards and pre-production images. Tedious. A successful artist's blog might read like this: "I worked on my latest commission today. My assistant is putting together the Legends From Camp storyboards and preproduction images." One potential benefit of doing my own dirty work is that I started some honest to god writing about Legends From Camp. Hopefully, I'll come up with something better than these blog blasts.

Goddamnit, that Rudolph Zallinger dinosaur muralat the Yale Peabody Museum is awesome. I'd like to do something a fraction as cool before I keel. Alexis Rockman probably feels the same way. His stuff is good, but there's not a single piece of "fine" art in the past 30 years that holds a candle to Zallinger. The man came, laid down his fierce majesty, and died. You who rocked, we salute you.

Busy (as a morning sunrise)

Been working away this morn getting Legends From Camp to stream on the web. Not sure if this is ultimately a good thing. Watching video on the web really does suck. On the other hand, never getting to see something sucks as well. I want Legends to go out and have a life in the world, but I seem constitutionally incapable of distributing copies of it myself. This way, at least, it can be seen now and then by actual flesh and blood people. Imagine. Prattle. More when I upload it.

On the daily drawing end of things, here's an early stage of a sci-fi character design from my sketch book. I'm going to paint up the skull dude in 40-shoppe. Stay glued to your set for the updates. Yeah, I know, Mars Attacks. Who says 5th generation design can't be fun? These started as concepts for a 2D flash video game I've been designing with my son.

In "The Office" on a Saturday

Getting to work on the web site illustrating (stupidly and unnecessarily) a "Making of Arms and Ether" section. It's sure to impress. Let's see, regrets about being bad at drawing, minor annoying ear ache, heavy mental fog . . . Now would be a good time to go play soccer or basketball. I'm missing that glorious forgetting that comes with all out sportin' fun. Perhaps a xiao bike ride would be good. Dawdle. Glurck. Before I go, I'm going to finish drafting out the 11 drawings for that Arms and Ether section. See, I'm disciplined. Har har.

Tonight will be good to hook up with the 8-bit Ghost hisself--Scott Raedeke. He'll be doling out the ActionScript preachings, and I'll be witnessing. Revelatin.'

Glenn Hughes Society

In our 1988 college yearbook, I claimed to be a 4-year member of the Glenn Hughes Society. Here's a picture of Glenn Hughes, the leather enthusiast of the Village People, who unfortunately, died in 2001. The man brought it. What else can you say?

In 1988, I bore no resemblance to Wooly Willy; now, I'm pretty much a dead-ringer (see graphic provided in previous post). Oddly enough, I found this rather Glenn Hughes-like manifestation of Willy whilst performing a search on the "world-wide-web." Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets.

Spent 'bout 3 hours diddling with the web site today, so good on me. Kind of lost momentum for a bit there, but back in the saddle. Even got the DMF tests graded. Huzzah.

Up mit People

I'm looking forward to seeing all of my "concept" work up in one place. I'm not sure why that is. I'm not a slick commercial "concept artist" who renders out industrial sci-fi machinery and anatomically correct triceps (though God knows, I've tried.). I suppose it's because I'm realizing I've spent a lot of my life using drawing as a way of thinking and feeling. And when I see these desperate little scuff marks on the paper it feels like me. It feels like who I really am. My students think I'm some weird, muttering, disorganized bald guy, my colleagues think I'm scheming to wreck their lives, and my neighbors think I'm a lazy oddball with a shitty yard and crappy beat up cars bringing down their property values. But really, I'm just a guy excited about thinking and drawing things. Kind of like a 5th-rate, irrelevant Hokusai (who apparently described himself late in life as "an old man crazy about drawing."). Yeah. I think that's it.
p.s. this drawing was a concept for Arms and Ether.
p.p.s. still haven't found the USEM papers. #%*@!

Gray again. Gray.

It's 3:15 p.m. a bleak time in anyone's life. Slept in til 10:00 today. Thanks, baby. Still groggy, though, of course. Sorting through Legends From Camp material today. Hmmm, should have done this oh, about 4 years ago. Too bad, so sad. Okay, so I didn't get my act together until today, but I didn't have a total nervous breakdown 4 years ago either. I came very close, I bet. The Moral? Growing up is a gradual never-ending process. And then you die.
Here's a concept drawing I did for Legends From Camp, back 'round 1998 (!). Since starting this web project, my mind has shifted back and forth between, "Oh my God, look at all the stuff I've done!" to "Oh my God this is all the stuff I've done?" Go figure.

Helpful Hints

Kids, it's important to market yourself effectively. To this end, you need to have an appropriate publicity photo. The image at left is an example of a clear and alluring head shot sure to leave a strong first impression with the people you need to impress.
I've finished the first pass through the Lithia job, and now I'm friggin' with my web site again. Actually, I'm going through all of my @#$ing disorganized $#@% in order to dig up the rest of the images I'd like to post in the Vault section of the web site.

Can't Get Started With You

3 a.m. Sweet Jebus. Hacking around with the web site. It was either that or mope around the house when I should be in bed. I've been going through all o' my Daily Drawings from the past 10 years , and I'm mired in 2001. hurglh.

Abysmal Morning Made of Night

Kind of Miltonic? Everyone's their own William Blake these days. 10:00 a.m. Worked on my new "web site"yesterday and this morn. Goody. Still trying to figure out what this blog thing is. Don't try and label me, man. Here's an awesome drawing that Sam did last week on the computer. Sam rules. I'm adding a "Vault" page to my web site to hold the olde crappe I've done over the years. That's a dark window into one's own mortality. . . but should be fun! Now I've got to find a stack of papers from my USEM class. Also, put together some junk for a dept. meeting today. This, dear readers, is the joy of man's desiring.

I suppose it's the 21st Century

And so, it begins--gettin' the web thing going. Joined Flickr and Vimeo tonight. Flailing with Dreamweaver and Freeway. Exciting, though. Good to get connected with this odd new phony electro-world. It'll be good to have this junk up and accessible. Here is the proto-link to
Happiness Hole Flickr

Sky High!

Here are some links to short animation tests for The Happiness Hole--a project I've been collaborating on with mates (peng you's for our Chinese readers) Evan Carroll, Joe Brick, and Ty Burrell.

Jeff Song by The Sky High Achievers
Warren Wakes Up

While we're at it, here's a link to my "web page" such as it is.