Life: It Happened

So for those of you that were reading regularly, I am sorry for the long absence.  Life struck and I have been nowhere close to a computer for quite some time.  The past two months have been absolutely inundated with large events.  So we'll start at the beginning.  This may be a pretty long blog post.  Just a warning. 

BABY NEWS!

Some of you may already know this bur for those of you who don't, here it is!  Around the same time as Otakon I found out some really important, and kind of unexpected news.  I'm pregnant!  My husband and I will be expecting our first child around the first of April next year.  That has definitely preoccupied my mind quite a bit.  Not that I'm panicking or that I don't want kids.  They were going to happen sooner or later.  While I say that this was a surprise, it wasn't exactly an accident. 

So far I'm around five months along and we already know the sex of the baby.  It's gonna be a girl!  We've got a first name picked out, the last name is obvious, but a middle name isn't really coming so easy.  My husband wants to use my middle name, but I don't like that idea.  I didn't like that both of my parents name me after themselves, I didn't want to do the same to my own child.  So the middle name is still up in the air.  (suggestions in the comments are greatly appreciated! I'd love to hear some!)

Little Alexandria Altenkirch

For a while I was also worried that I would be a detached parent.  I'm not sure if it's due to my upbringing or what, but I have a tendency to be very... distant.  I thought, "what if I see my baby as just a thing?  Not a tiny human, but a thing that simply cries, barfs, and poops everywhere?  Wouldn't that make me a terrible parent?  What if I'm just as awkward around my own child as I am other children and even adults?"

The last ultrasound definitely pushed me a little further over that hurdle, as well as the fact that I can feel her moving now.  I've become quite paranoid of anything happening to her, even if she does like to randomly assault my bladder.  Nothing quite compares to that  ultrasound where you can see your baby's little head, and her hands and feet.  You can see your baby in real time respond to things happening outside your belly and it really starts to put things into a different perspective for you.

Over all I am definitely excited, just a little anxious for the future.  I will do the best I can to be a good parent and I know my husband will too.  I couldn't be happier for the supportive friends and the few family members that I have that have been very supportive as well.

CAR ACCIDENT

Before....

Now this one is sort of embarrassing.  I wrecked my car.  It all happened in the dumbest way possible too.  I ran a red light and smacked another vehicle and to this day I couldn't tell you how in the hell I missed the fact that the light was red.

Luckily it wasn't a terrible accident.  The car is still drivable and shockingly everything on it still works even though it suffered frame damage.  The air bags didn't go off, I didn't even get a bruise from my seat belt and the baby is just fine.  I'll be forever grateful that the car has some amazingly strong brakes!

This happened at the beginning of September so I wasn't even pregnant enough to show yet, which is probably a good thing.  All in all it wasn't a super traumatizing experience and no one suffered any injury.

However I've been pretty damn depressed about it all.  This was my first ever vehicle and it was still functioning well and it still looked perfectly fine up until I wrecked it.  The car is nearly 16 years old and I've owned it for the past eight years.  I used to wash and wax this car at least once a month.  I could shine it to such a finish, that the sunlight reflecting off of it could blind you.  I was proud of my car and I had been through a lot with it.

Now it looks like it's had a stroke.  I bought a new bumper for it, which has no paint on it and it's lopsided due to the frame being twisted ever so slightly.  The hood, and the headlights are both transplants from junkyard vehicles, one of them is foggier than the other ... holy crap this poor vehicle!  I feel so terrible for having wrecked it.  Mechanically, the only thing that was wrong with it was a busted radiator, which was replaced.  I still drive it and I still talk to it and love it, but looking makes me feel so guilty!  The inside is also a mess now, and still filled car parts that have yet to be replaced...

I did take the time off to go get the parts from the junkyard myself.  I normally go to the junk yard with my husband but this time it was my mess and I didn't feel like dragging him with me.  Being a petite woman in a junk yard, alone, now that was an experience in itself, which I may post an entry about later.  The way some of the men there acted upon seeing me you'd think they had just found a unicorn.

JOB LEAVING SOONER THAN EXPECTED

Yep, it is sad, and it has some terrible timing considering the baby.  I somehow knew that this would happen though.  I didn't want to believe it but, as my grandmother always said, "that's the way the ball bounces."  Work was getting pretty slow.  We were supposed to focus on a new product this year.  So much counted on these new products, and they never worked.  Last year work was plentiful, sometimes almost too much to handle.  We worked overtime until we were sick of it.  There were days during the winter that we never saw sunlight because we quite literally worked from sun up, to sun down.

We were supposed to launch something like two completely new products to keep us busy up until the lease on our building was finished in August of 2015.  They had hired a large number of temps to deal with this ramp-up in production, which should have happened as early as last year.  To put it bluntly, it never even almost happened.  The products in question still don't work to this day.  In the course of a year, we went from making millions monthly, to losing hundreds of thousands every month.

Due to this massive, corporate failure to function, my job will not longer exist as of December 13th, 2014.  Yes folks, that's about two weeks from now.  I think someone needed to explain to some of these guys that "give or take a few months" shouldn't translate into "give or take nearly an entire year."  If these morons were competent enough to plan more than two weeks ahead, this could have been avoided and I wouldn't be looking for a new job while nearly six months pregnant.  Your actions sometimes have adverse effects on other people kids, remember that.

Even though I really want to wash my hands clean of this company forever, I did have an interview for a graphic design position with them and maybe I'll get it.  The opportunity is great.  I mean let's be honest here, I didn't even expect to get an interview.  With my lack of experience as well as the fact that I have no college degree I'm shocked that I'm even in the running.  The design team seem like very nice people, and the interview I had with them was a far cry from the stiff, stuck up, know-it-all attitudes of most of the corporate people I had dealt with already.  I had to give some real thought to answering questions and giving my take on the scenarios presented to me.  If that kind of critical thinking is involved for this job then I have a feeling that I would love it.

Unfortunately, as well as the negative connotation I already have for this company, moving six hours away doesn't appeal to me either.  I don't want to uproot my husband and make him start over.  Again.  He's not from here, he's only been living in this area for about eight years now, and now that he's established with friends and my family, I feel like it would be unfair to him to make him move.

Even with all the negatives, I don't want to let my fear of the unknown keep me from finally having something that could create a more stable and enjoyable future, not only for myself, but for my family.  If I could chase this opportunity, I could actively support myself, my upcoming child, possibly even my spouse too.  We wouldn't have to go without and I could finally break out of treading the poverty line.  There's also the hope that once the company consolidates, maybe they'll finally get their shit together and things will get better.  Seems like a win/win situation but there's always more to it isn't there?

This is extremely conflicting to me.  I'm really not sure what to do.  It's overwhelming at times and this would explain quite a lot why I've been lacking in motivation lately.  I've been quite depressed and conflicted and I haven't finished a single art piece since the beginning of August.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE

I do have a few things to look forward to.  I had applied for MAGfest earlier in the year.  I was wait-listed but it seems that I may be going anyway!  A friend of mine scored a table and has offered to share that, as well as her hotel room.  I couldn't be happy enough to have such awesome friends!  I'll keep everyone updated as I get more info on this.

http://magfest.org/ visit it.

This is a bit of a pick-me-up since I'm excited to get back on the convention trail so early.  It's also a bit of a wake up call.  I need to get some more artwork done!  I still have a commission waiting in the wings to be finished and once I finish that I will be focusing on painting.  Actual painting, with acrylic paint on canvas.   I haven't decided exactly what I'm going to do with them yet but I have a stock pile of traditional art supplies from the years of Christmas gifts I have yet to use.  I should really stop wasting it.

The originals will be available in art auctions at conventions this coming year!

I won't be attending any conventions, February through April, due to baby.  I've been advised not to travel past seven months.  This does leave me time to apply for Animazement again at the end of may and I would love nothing more than to do Artist Alley at Animazement for a fourth year in a row.  It is by far my favorite convention to attend.

Keep an eye out!  I plan to start live streaming again in the near future as well!  This will probably especially pick up after the holiday season once I'm out of this dreadful apartment and into something more spacious and better kept.

Once again, I'd like to thank anyone and everyone who reads, for reading.  It does feel better to get some of this stuff off my chest sometimes.

Hopefully my next entry will have some more artwork for you guys!

Until next week!

Spark, out.

Scatterbrained: The Mysterious Red-head

I think my biggest hurdle when it comes to anything creative, is the fact that I'm so ADD about... everything.  So far I have two completely separate story ideas that have completely different sets of characters.  (I've been trying to curb my character recycling habits.)  When I try to work on one, I only seem to come up with ideas for the other.  Then when I actually attempt to write anything, I end up staring at a blank page for an hour or two before doodling something that may or may not have anything to do with what I was just trying to write.

doodles

Take this picture for instance.  I doodled it because I wanted to show the difference in this character from the time the story starts until three years in.  I don't even think I really accomplished anything but at least I got a picture out of it?

I sat down and tried to write again.  Seems like I just got distracted by photoshop again and ended up slapping some color onto one of the sketches.  I even tried to cell shade but that totally didn't happen.  I'm not sure whether to call it a failure or a win.  I don't hate it but it really wasn't what I was aiming for.

Yep, my attempt at cell shading went horribly wrong.

Some of you already know this character.  She's come up in multiple drawings but she always seems to look different.  Probably a product of my ADD getting the better of me.  Her name's Kyna and she's been in about three different plots now.  I've also kidnapped her name and appearance for a multitude of online games. (Hello PWI peeps!  Now you know where the infamous Kyna comes from.)

She started out, first as a character in a high fantasy story I started way back in high school.  As a matter of fact her name wasn't even Kyna to begin with, it was Rika.  I was a total Anime nerd and I seriously thought I could get by, writing some drabble that resembled just about any feudal Japan manga in existence.

I pretty quickly saw the error in my ways and backed off the Japan thing.  (Weaboo status avoided.)  I started making up more on my own and trying to mimic less.  Her name eventually changed to what it is now and I never looked back.

Originally, she was supposed to be mysterious, bad ass, and only sort of a traitor.  She joined the enemy with every intention of ripping them apart from the inside, but fell in love with them instead.  That version of her character is still very much an entertaining design to work with.  As a matter of fact one of our prints for the convention rounds this year features this rendition of the character.

Rika Herp-a-derp

I've long since abandoned that old story and I no longer have any intention of writing her character in this manner.  Despite having changed it from a mock-Japan, to a more original setting, the old story was still just full of plot holes!  I mean, come on, it was pretty much what you'd expect from a seventeen-year-old author wannabe.  Better than the fifteen-year-old terrible fanfiction writer, but still not great.

The plot was seriously cliche and predictable, the characters were often cheesy and just hopeless.  Nearly the whole thing was hopeless but it was my baby at the time and for years I didn't let it go.  The only thing that really stood out was the world that I ended up constructing.

When I scrapped it, at least some of the characters survived in artwork, and a few of them ended up integrated into a new plot.  Something more adult and less hopeless-romantic-teenager.  I do believe I mentioned it before in a previous blog entry.

The Original Kyna (Pencils by Nga, colors by Michele)

The name of the story was E20XX, a post-apocalyptic fantasy in which the apocalypse was caused by magic.  This plot idea allowed me to keep a lot of my old character ideas.  Some of them changed drastically to fit a new setting, others didn't change much at all.  

Kyna was one that changed a lot.  Possibly the one that changed the most.  In the old plot, Kyna was the pretty usual, mysterious antihero.  Honestly I liked her design more than I liked her character, she was just missing something.  That whole story was just missing something.  The new one I started and sort of began molding her character to fit the current environment.

Things didn't really add up though and I tweaked her personality.  Even then, that didn't seem like enough to make her a survivor.  Normally she is, yes, but in a more modern setting she wouldn't have had the same situations growing up.  She wouldn't have had this urge for revenge to keep her going.  That was a terrible basis for a character anyway.

So what did I do to give her character that extra "oomph" to survive the apocalypse?  I did what anyone would have done!  I gave her a kid.  It just seemed like a good solution and a pretty solid way to turn a somewhat normal woman into a vicious, battle-scarred, ass-kicking survivor.  Momma bear syndrome.

Hopefully this version of the character and this story turns out more productive than previous versions.  I'm sticking to it until it's done, let's just hope I can find my focus this time.

Maybe this will explain the red-head that keeps popping up in a multitude of drawings.  She always has the same colors, the same hair, the same scar on her cheek, the same name, but a constantly changing setting.