I decided to go a little sideways with my reference for this one. Look familiar?

Also - the darkest of my Prismacolor markers was going dry. You can see it in his sweatpants.

Tools - I 'cheated' by using pencil to rough out the design so tha it would follow the reference closely enough to be recognizable. Next was the cheapy ballpoint pen to draw the design. Sharpie pen to very line weight, and traditional Sharpie for the 'bold' stuff.

Day One of both Inktober and Drawlloween. Went with something a little goofy, and light hearted to start things off.

Used a pic of Bugs Bunny running to get the body posture.

Already noticing that some of the proportions aren't really right, but I'm not too worried about it.

Used a cheapy ballpoint pen for the base drawing, a Sharpie pen for inking,  traditional Sharpie for the bold, and Prismacolor markers for the greys.

Tomorrow? Noisy Zombie. I have an interesting idea....

First, I should point out that I hate the name Drawlloween. I love the concept behind it, and I'm taking part, but there's just something about the name that is very much like fingernails on the chalkboard for me. I think it has something to do with the way some people have asked me throughout my life to "please drawl me something?". That's not the word.

I'm not really a grammar nazi. Not really. I just play one in my head.

Okay, yeah. I kinda am.

Anyway. I love the idea behind Inktober and Drawlloween. (Links are to their respective FB groups.) This year, I decided to take part in both. Yes, that's a little bit insane.

Unless, of course, someone got the idea in their head to combine the two. Which I did. So I created a quick cheat sheet which can be found here: Inktober Drawlloween Combo Prompts. (Document also contains the list of prompts for each separate group.)

So - I don't know if any of you were thinking of taking part, but if so, feel free to let me know! (I'll probably be posting the images here - or at least links to them throughout the month.)

Good lord did I just stumble upon the way to lose ALL of my time. I've been rediscovering Reddit over the last couple days and finding a lot of stuff that piques my art curiosity.

I just found the /r/Imaginary.../ subreddits.

Example:  /r/ImaginaryVikings/

Once you're there, note the menu structure along the top of the page.

You're welcome/I'm sorry.

That sounds a bit more dickish than I mean it, of course. Here's the thing though - I've realized that I'm spending way too much time on social media. Again. 

So it's time for a revamp of how I interact with social media, and FB in particular since it's the worst offender. This may seem like self centered ranting, but I decided to post about this because I think many folks might benefit from using my 'process'.

My process for checking Facebook is pretty straight forward: 1. I look through / click on the notifications I've received since I last checked in. 2. Once I'm through those, I might read my wall/stream/wtf they're calling it these days.

But I noticed that there's only a handful of types of posts folks are making on Facebook, and they are:

• Political posts: Okay, I get it. You have strong feelings about one or both of the candidates. That actually makes me happy because it means you're invested. Most of the folks who read this post? I probably agree with your mindset. Those who I don't agree with? As much as I would like to think myself a 'bigger man', you're not likely to sway me with your vitriol towards my candidate. End result? I'm not reading political posts.
• Charity posts: There are a ton of really worthwhile charities out there who deserve our resources - be that time, money, or effort. Chances are pretty good that I'm already familiar with the charity you're doing your 'awareness' post on though. I can't easily put in time helping with the run/event that is coming up because I'm not going to be around for it. I genuinely wish I could, but.... And lastly, I already put what moneys I can into a handful of charities that I've picked out. End result? I'm not reading charity posts.
• Pet photos/videos: Look, I'm a sucker for cats and especially dogs. If you know me at all, you know this to be true. But holy hell are there a shit ton of pet videos on the intarwebs. If it's not the cat/dog/other of one of my friends? I just don't have the time/bandwidth to spend with it. Which kinda brings me to the close of this post:

tl;dr - I now look through those same notifications, and when I'm deciding whether or not to click, there's one simple question I ask: did the post originate with my friend? Yes? Click. No? Move along - nothing to see here.

To show what I mean about that Randomizer being useful in other scenarios (it's not just for role-playing kids!) I was thinking that I would do up another example to randomly create writing prompts for those of us who get stuck *cough*allthefrickintime*cough*.

So I invite you to give me your favorite writing prompts below and I'll build them into this mod. :)

Should be able to do it by tonight/tomorrow morning.

This morning it's been rainy here, so I'm off the road. Decided it was a good time/opportunity to do some work on a little project that I've had brewing in my back brain for several years.

It all started when I fell in love with a program created by rpg game master Bruce Gulke called Tablesmith ( http://www.mythosa.net/p/tablesmith.html ). If you're a gamer who is using a Windows system, I highly recommend it. It's basically begware and well worth the money he asks for it if you can swing a few bucks.

That said, it's Windows only. I asked him a couple years ago about any interest he might have in creating a mobile app, and that conversation didn't really go anywhere.

If I had the time / inclination to do it properly, I would learn enough code to create the app myself, but I've never been a programmer - not really on any 'true' level.

I can figure out Google Spreadsheets though, and I just knew that there had to be a way to do what I'm looking for in there.

I'm here to say that I've figured it out!

Okay, maybe it's better to say that I've figured out a lumpy, hacked together with duct tape means of effecting something similar with a bit more effort on the part of the user. (Tablesmith is still a far superior product.)

I really think this will be useful to not just gamers, but also writers once I build out some parallel versions (this is for fantasy npcs, but could easily be tweaked to work for modern characters filling the background/environment of any genre). The concept could also be used to build out any kind of 'random' description you want - rooms, environments, scene backdrops, groups (organizations, religions, governmental crews...) the list of possibilities are absolutely endless.

If you would like to check it out the link is: 

This is a 'public' copy, so you can feel free to edit to your heart's content. The results auto generate any time there is a change to the sheet.

That's probably my next project for the sheet - to find a way to get the sheet to create a new entry without having to edit anything. I'm currently just changing an empty cell and then doing an undo/redo until I get a satisfactory response from the sheet. A push button in a cell would be perfect.

One of my primary purposes is to help myself get past those times when I'm feeling 'artist block' by creating a place I can auto generate an interesting sounding character to draw. A way to make it 'mindless' so I can just start working and let the ideas start flowing later.

Anyway - as always, I welcome thoughts/opinions/suggestions below or using the comments function on cells within the sheet itself.

Some feedback I'm especially interested in:

• Is this something you think you would use?
• Would you be more likely to use it if I made it more pretty/refined?
• Is there something you feel is missing from this version (the fantasy RPG character version)?
• Would you use a different version - i.e. Not for rpg work, but for generating some other random data for writing or...?

So I'm late posting this (how often do I manage to get it posted in time?!) but whatevs.

It rained today (yesterday) for my birthday. That may sound like a complaint, but it's the opposite. It meant I had the day off.

Went out for a nice big breakfast at a chain restaurant called Cora's. They're only up here in Canada, and I think they might only be in Quebec. I don't recall seeing them elsewhere, at least.

Anyway, after my tasty breakfast and about a gallon of their coffee, I retreated back to my hotel room where I watched most of the second season of Daredevil and just did a shit ton of drawing. Quiet, peaceful (the rain was very soothing), and productive. The images above and blow are what I did today alone.

In addition to these, I updated my Deviantart page, and created a couple different videos. The only video I uploaded is here. The technique I used is very different for me. Far more 'painting' than 'drawing' once I got past the initial sketch stage.

Alright - I'm hitting the sack. Hours to make up for work tomorrow!

More later, but I just had to jot myself a quick note: Remember that GMail has a built in 'doodle' feature. I think I knew this way back when, but I'd completely forgotten.

Used it today to send a rough sketch to a friend of mine that I asked to model for me - a reference photo I want to use in a drawing. The tool is clumsy and very rudimentary, but it worked, and it was kinda fun. Which, the way Google has been of late, means it will be gone now that I know it's there and useful.

Writerly Folks:

I was wondering if I could get some thoughts on the following items. I listen to a lot of podcasts about writing/publishing, but those are (in a sense) only one source. So I thought I would turn to youse guyz since I know there are more than a couple writers here.

Publishing

• Is traditional publishing still a thing that is worth pursuing?
  
• If so, how worthy of pursuit is it? Meaning: How much would you give up / fight for that over self publishing / digital publishing?
  
• If so, why? Is there some singular element that just puts it way out in front of self/digital publishing?

Tools / Resources

• Is there a resource you use all the time (podcasts, writing software, website(s)) that you use and couldn't live without?
• What do you most commonly use to do your writing? Pen and paper? Word? Scrivener?

Process

• Do you have a routine for writing? What is it?
• Do you have a production schedule? If so, why?

Why

Just wanted to point out that I wanted to do this post mostly as a discussion starter. I'm curious about the way you fine folks think about writing as work. As such, I'll comment below with my own answers. That way you can reply without being affected by my answers. You can also read them first if you prefer.