lack of steering

my preparations for comic-con were sidelined yesterday by the Great Power Steering Fluid Hunt, which had me up until 11:45 last night, looking for any 24-hour auto parts store that carried the stuff. mini coopers take a special german hydraulic fluid, which is difficult to find -- only the dealers have it, and some places online. you'd have thought that my dealer would've given me the right fluid when i went in to their parts department yesterday, but you'd be wrong. in a fit of black humor or incompetence, they gave me exactly the one fluid that would manage to ruin my power steering system, if put in. luckily my best friend works near the dealer, and picked some up for me. let's see how that fixes the problem for now -- though i suspect i'll have to add replacing the seals and maybe the pump to the ever-growing list of things i need to get maintained on the car, which was running at over $1300 before the power steering nonsense.

no pressure or anything to get freelance work. naah.

so. tonight, i'm beating down the panic and anxiety over completing my hard copy of my portfolio, and forcing myself to get it done. if i let my negative ego steer, i can think of about a dozen things i'd rather be doing, and a hundred reasons why my art isn't good enough to even show to anyone. just like my car, i'm now whining when turned in the direction i need to go.

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online art gallery is up!

after what seems like ages, but has really only been a few weeks, i've gotten a functional art gallery up on my website, at: http://www.pantagruel.net/art/gallery2/main.php if you could take a few minutes today to go through it, that'd be spectacular.... does the 'art portfolio' album represent my work well?... if you wanted to leave comments and ratings for the images, that would be helpful.

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comic-con preparations

it's been a productive day -- with help from j., i got all my paintings shot and imported, and i'm working on resizing smaller versions of them to post in my gallery. that's a huge load off my mind, and i'm glad to have that hurdle overcome, as it'd been vexing me all week.
also, i bought a camelbak at REI today. j. was getting a small one, and i thought hey… how perfect would this be for the con? i have a serious hiking backpack with a platypus water reservoir, but it's serious enough that it has a metal frame, and is pretty huge -- which means tempting to fill up with crap. in order to function optimally, it needs to have the hip and chest belts fastened, and that's just a bit too much, even for comic-con. it's very tempting to someday upgrade to the military camelbak line. but i think that the one i got will be just right -- enough to carry 2L of water, fill easily from a fountain, and carry a couple of small things. the last three years, i've carried around a shoulder bag, which has left my back in agony by the end of the day, despite switching shoulders periodically. i managed to fit about 50 lbs. in it last year, between all the books, markers, more books, posters, water, portfolio, snack bars, etc. not something i recommend doing.
now, for the comic colorist part of the portfolio. hey, there's always a chance marvel, DC, dark horse, et. al. are in dire need of a new colorist.
and oh yeah… business cards that look interesting.
and the last few touches on the website and gallery.

oof.

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being on the other side of the desk

i remember her as one of the very few art directors that took the time to write me back a couple of years ago, when i sent her a PDF of my portfolio -- i thought that was very cool of her to do. taking shots of the Doesn't Suck pile of art has been problematic -- i'm still getting so much shine on the paintings that it's hard to tell what they're even of.... for today, i'm going to go collect all of my old art and hide it in a gallery album that only i can see, so it's still up on the site in case i need it, but only my current Doesn't Suck work will be visible.

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