One of the problems with winter around here is that having the heat on all the time dries the air pretty bad, which can make your skin like super dry. Who cares about dry skin, right? Well, it makes you more susceptible to cuts and whatnot (and we’re working with lots of boxes and stuff - cardboard paper cuts are no fun) so i went and bought this big humidifier thing. Bringing it in thru the front door, the damn door closed so fast that it scraped my left hand against the edge of the aluminum door… chunked the hell out of the back of my hand. Luckily its my left hand, so its not too big of a deal, but da~~amn.
Switching gears to work on chapter 6 again has really been difficult. My brain is in ‘wind down’ mode, and its not responding well to ‘crank up’ mode. This is pretty normal, i think. It has to do with momentum, i’m trying to pick up the threads and momentum for Chapter 6, and it’s never easy to pull stuff up from a dead stop. After a lot of wheel spinning, some things are starting to click back into place, so i think i definitely have the content ideas almost in place, its just a question of getting it down into words and scriptage.
Of course, what i really wanna do is plop down and pick up where i left off with Desegea, about three months ago 
or was that four months ago? I don’t remember… Nippon Ichi has already come out with another game in the time it’s taken me to get into this one. Bleah. 
Ah well, to work, to work…
- pirotunes: Visit Venus - One Step Beyond -
Ouch.
Would you like a band-aid? I have some of the plastic “skin color” and “smiley face” varieties. Oh, and some of the stretchy cloth ones. Those are always good.
OUCH!! I know that that can hurt, I’m sorry about that. But at least it’s not your writing hand.
Any ways, I’m looking forward to your continuation of chapter 6. Till next blog. C Y4, L8R
Eeek! No damaged artist hands, you hear? SHI creator Billy Tucci (the fellow with whom you shared a curtain at this year’s SDCC) lost a lot of time on his works when a porcelain lamp knob shattered in his drawing hand and damn near took his finger off. (The silly sod even posted a picture of it on his site for everyone to retch at; grossness warning: http://tinyurl.com/4493a .) Don’t do that to yourself, k?
In the meantime, I recommend much ice and Polysporin. Oh, and plenty of good chocolate to take the edge off the pain. *nods*
GAH! he did? Jeez, i shouldn’t complain (this is just irritating and looks like i was beating someone up (it’s my knuckles and back of hand that are all bloodied). Please tell him that he’s got me bundling my hands in horror over that.
Um, how about getting a chapter of Warmth done. Perfect to do over the holidays being cold and all. May I remind you what is posted to the Warmth link Piro?
“update [03.29.2004]:
obviously, I was unable to get ‘warmth’ up and
running again in time for christmas 2003. This
does not mean that ‘warmth’ will not happen, it’s
just a question of when. In January 2004 i made
a special trip to Sendai while visiting japan in
order to gather a sense of place for the story.
i cannot work on ‘warmth’ until ‘megatokyo’ is
stable and ahead of schedule.
My goal is to have ‘warmth’ officially launched
before years end. Ramping up to this, i’ll be doing
this website, presenting samples of ‘warmth’ that
have already been done, and other related goodies.
Honestly, the initial launch of Warmth was premature.
I’m just one guy, so there’s only so much i can do at once.
Thank you for your patience.”
You know, just at least give us a nibble aye? ^_^
So you cut the back of your hand up bringing in a humidifier to avoid cutting your hands up.
Ladies and Gentlemen, irony at work :p .
Ah well, keep rockin’ on, and look after yourself, y’hear?
I know what you mean about winding down. It’s hard for me because by the time I wind down completely from my day job, it’s time to go to sleep. This doesn’t give me much time for creating music. I really need to contemplate doing something about my day job.
When my hands are dry, I love holding them over a steaming cup of tea. Or soup. It gives you this warm, lovely, cozy-dozey feeling…
Anyway, hope your hand heals soon and keep up the lovely work~!
“i cannot work on ‘warmth’ until ‘megatokyo’ is
stable and ahead of schedule.”
um, you sorta missed that little bit.
‘Megatokyo’ is hardly ahead of schedule at the moment. It was GOAL to have things up and going with Warmth by years end. Good news is that i am very seriously moving forward with Warmth in 2005.
What Fred said: “GAH! he did? Jeez, i shouldn’t complain (this is just irritating and looks like i was beating someone up (it’s my knuckles and back of hand that are all bloodied). Please tell him that he’s got me bundling my hands in horror over that. :)”
Oh, you’re perfectly well within your rights to complain — scraped hands hurt like a bitch, after all, and this wasn’t meant to be a pissing contest XD — just don’t go and do something stupid like that to your drawing hand.
I shall convey your message forthwith.
“Good news is that i am very seriously moving forward with Warmth in 2005.”
Heh. I dont WANT to say “we’ve heard that before”, since I really would like to see Warmth, but, well, you know…
Actually though, with MegaGear up and running and the third book out to the printers, unless Fred has some other secret project going or a lot of conventions to go to it’s actually conceivable that he can use M/W/F to get ahead in MT strips and then do Warmth pages. (i.e. the days inbetween Su/Tu/Th when he normally does the MT strips.)
Oh wow, you seem like a really busy person! Poor guy, I wish I could really understand what it’s like to live the life of a popular webcomic artist. You probably don’t get to watch alot of anime either! Oh yeah it’s thanks to you that I heard about Kanon I like it alot, even though it seems alittle girly. What exactly is Desegea?! is it a game? is it a book? is it fun?
The dry air makes me susceptible to nosebleeds, personally. How stereotypically geeky of me…
I haven’t been able to get “into” Phantom Brave the way I did with Disgaea. The story isn’t bad, but the combat system is so complex/indirect that it torpedo’ed my involvement imeadiately, literally in the tutorial battle. Instead of wondering what would happen next in the story I was wondering if learning to fight would even be worth it.
yo fred hope the hand gets better. ppl should lacks out about warmth the man will get to it whn he does and i thought phantom brave was a preatty good game if ur able to get into it. till next time. ja ne.
“it’s actually conceivable that he can use M/W/F to get ahead in MT strips and then do Warmth pages. (i.e. the days inbetween Su/Tu/Th when he normally does the MT strips.)”
I wonder how many of your people have any concept of the amount of work it takes to make ONE of those comics… Fred works hard on this stuff, and being creative with art AND story isn’t easy. M/W/F is more than enough, in my opinion, and Fred’s doing a hell of a lot better with it than most anybody else could.
^_^ Sorry ’bout your hand, Fred. Bandaid, mang.
..sniff sniff.. Just an extra drawing??? ..sniff sniff.. on an airplane ride maybe? ..sniff sniff.. how bout on a envelope ..sniff sniff.. NapKIN?!?
(hey, I gotta tease a little)
Pajamieez sed: “What exactly is Desegea?! is it a game? is it a book? is it fun?”
It’s a PS2 game, the name of which is romanized on this side of the pond as ‘Disgaea’ (Fred used the original spelling). I’ve heard some really good things about it and got the impression that it’s very underrated. I’ll have to grab a copy for myself sometime — just as soon as I finish all the games I’ve got waiting for me, that is… -.-;;
Slightly abashed plug: http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/product/236675.asp
Ergh……cardboard papercuts…>< Disgaea is an awesome game. Unfortunately…I got distracted by FF-X2 and Star Ocean- Till the End of Time. HEh…I’m easily distracted…
Oh wow, I didn’t know you could post comments here! Awesome!
Yeah, this cold weather really does a number on me - my lips are chapped, my knucles are dry, and if I try to run (and i have to next year for gym class) my throat gets dry and i cough up blood. ><; Chapstick cures the lips, but I hate lotion so I have to just deal with the rest.
I hope I save back some extra money so I can buy Chapter 3 when it comes it, I bought the first two and wanna continue the collection. I just have soooo many games to go after. I love Disgaea, it is my favorite PS2 game me thinks, well, one of them at least. I bought it nearly a year ago O.O the day after Christmas, but other stuff always distracts me and I never got to play it as much as I would have liked. I have so many games to play, then I got my ‘net friends to talk to, then there’s school and stuff, and now my memory card got wiped cuz of the holiday 2004 demo disk… -.-;
I’ll try to post here more often, this is definately a nice addition to the fredart site. *thumbs up*
~ Ovi
Nicest thing for dry hands–Neutrogena Fragrance-Free Hand and Body lotion. Billed as the stuff fishermen use, a little dot of it makes your hands feel like you just went to a spa. I work at a vet clinic where I constantly have to wash my hands, and I absolutely swear by this stuff. It’s about $4 for a bottle that will last you months.
Fred - this is your conscience. You are working way too hard.
Please disregard my previous alerts to your guilt center. I submitted one too many forms, and I think your latest swampedness was my fault.
Sit back, relax for a moment, and have a cookie.
- Love,
Your Brain
Fred,
Don’t worry. Our doctors rock in US. I picked up a fridge a few years ago and it put a cut into my ring finger down to the bone (1/3 of way down finger). Despite an unpleasant cleaning process (stingy alcohol, saline, or something on wound). They fixed me right up. True, I have a smiley scar, but finger is good as can be.
Heck, I knew a professional shooter who got his finger shot off and reattched. Again, scarring but he could use for everything including drawing and writing.
Moral, the doctors can fix much worse than we fear would sideline us. So… relax a bit.
Hello. This is my first talk to you so I won’t try to blab on like I usually do with other sites. I really enjoy your web comics and check up on them frequently just to see what happens next. I would like to get your email address so that I can send some emails and won’t waste your comment boxes. I haven’t played Desgia in a while either as a matter of fact I was playing it before I left the states. Its cause I am in the Army National Guard and I am currently in Kuwait with no PS2 to play as often as I want but I will eventually get back to playing it cause its one of the best games that I have ever played. Well I am going to stop while I am ahead and once I get your email address then I can really let loose on my comments and things. So until then I’ll continue reading your web commic and hopefully be able to email you often. Peace