Just spent the past hour pulling up my lettuce beds. Have no clue what to plant to replace them atm. Kind of outta fund until mid-month anyways.

Roman was good. Will try planting that again next year. It's a little late to plant them this year as they will just wilt in the summer heat here. If I knew of a way I could plant them year round, I would. We eat a lot of lettuce in this household so growing them constantly would be a boon. But I don't see how to do that unless I had a climate controlled interior space. Not gonna happen. I can dream though.

The Italian Radishino did poorly. I don't think I got a single head out of the lot. Part of that was my fault. I planted them alongside the Roman and the two did not get along with each other. The Roman chocked out the Radishino badly. I was really looking forward to a mix salad of the two, but that did not happen. If I try again, they will be in their own bed, or planet with Onions that won't out compete them for sunlight.

The Butter Leaf is what I'm most mad over. They did really well, right up until harvest. Just when I was about to harvest them, It got hot enough we had to hook up the air conditioners, which block my access to the backyard, and I was not in great shape due to allergies. As soon as the weather tapered off I went out to check on them to find in that two day period, they had become mite/aphid infested and before I could salvage more than two heads, all of them were dead. What I salvaged was yummy. But loosing all the heads but two due to me thinking "Just a couple more days and they'd be ready to harvest, I can wait til then," is just maddening. Lesson learned. Better to harvest early than too late.

If I had to live off what I grew, I would be screwed. I am lucky in that my gardening is basically a hobby sprung out of the need to get 15-minutes a day of sunlight. If my harvest goes bad, I can just walk to the supermarket and get the food I need. It's a luxury that I think most American's take for granted. Also, when breaking down the cost of planting and growing anything I get at the market is penny compared to the dollars I've spent for growing one of the same item. People who tell the poor to simply "grow your own food", need to be taken out behind the woodshed and given a stern paddling.

Lets do a little math - Sweet, Burp-less Cucumbers (one of my better crops this year), we have gotten 5 cucumbers outta 2 plants so far. Might get more, who's to say. It cost five dollars after tax for each plant. Another eight dollars in soil for the planter, Twenty-five dollars for the climbing cage, and about two dollars worth of fertilizer. Not including time, water or the planter itself (all those cost too), I spent forty-five dollars to plant these. That comes to $9.00 per Cucumber to sit on our table. Looking up the price at Safeway for Organic Cucumbers, they currently sell for $2.00 each. For next year, I can deduct the price of the cage - but all the other costs would remain the same. That would be $4.00 per green, edible, phallic thingy. Growing your own food in the united states is no-longer cheaper than you doing it yourself. Those who can do it in-mass have better chance at recovering costs. I, with my tiny suburban concrete strip of a backyard, do not.

So, next-time you hear someone say 'Why don't you just stick seeds in the ground instead of wasting money/food-stamps," Please, tell them how much of a duffus they are for me.

With that said, true farmers are producing more with less land. It's actually kind of impressive. I talked to my dad recently about the family farm up in Montana. My father came from a large family of 8 brothers and sisters. None of them wanted the family farm and when it came time, went their separate ways, passing the farm to their cousin, who already had the farmland next-door. The farmland nowadays has encompassed many other families' plots ... and it all lays fallow, with only wild prairie grass gown, under the direction of the Bureau of Land Management. This is not a bad thing. It means that anything that could be grown there would be in excess of what is actually needed to go to market. It also means the return of the prairie and all the life that brings with it. I just hope it's being managed properly so that the life there can flourish. Oh, and as far as I know, while they have done some exploration, no oil has been found there during the resent Montana oil boom. So no Big Oil stepping in to muck up that little patch of prairie. Despite how much money it would bring in, as my father and his brothers still hold mineral rights to the land, I hope it stays that way.

Just spent the weekend tearing down and rebuilding my studio space. Still got a longs ways to go for organization but it's in MUCH better shape already.

For starters (and this is what sparked the whole thing off), I finally had saved enough money for a true, motorized sit-to-stand desk. Been lusting after one of these for ages. But I have been diligent with my money and finally had saved enough to get one, with a nice birch top.

Since James and I were ripping out the area anyways, one of the things on the 'To Do' list was to reorg all the mating snakes, er, loose cables behind the area. Getting all that off the floor means it's now easier to clean/vacuum. And we now have easy access to the heater knob. And no cables are touch the heat-strip anymore, so we can use it in the winter, instead of trying to pump heat in from the front of the house.

We also got a very small UPS for the internet/cable modem/switch so that if power goes out, as long as the machines are still going, due to their own UPS's, we can still reach the outside world. This is super important for Dave, since he's constantly doing file transfers for his job. Him going down in the middle of a transfer has proven disastrous in the past. Now, we can nip that problem in the bud.

Still have lots of desk arranging to do, but the bulk of the heavy lifting is done. All and all, a good weekend well spent, I say.

Sorry upfront for the rant. Feel free to skip.

Just spent the day at the walk-in clinic due to severe head pressure and stabby face pains. Typically, this is a hard indication of sinus infection. But, according tot he doctor and the X-Rays, I have no infection. Just regular allergies. Allergies that make my face feel like it's infected. Again.

One thing that came out of this is he was able to write me a prescription for QNasl that I could hand to the pharmacist. This is actually a big deal. And an expensive one.

I have been asking for this particular med for over 2 years now. And my currently assigned allergist keeps writing prescriptions, sending them off to insurance, insurance refuses to pay because there is no generic version, and the Doctor doesn't followup to force the matter with the insurance. The Insurance company then does NOT hand the prescription over to the pharmacist to give me the option of self-paying. Yet it's only the QNasl that really works for me. I have tried other nasal sprays and while they open me up just enough to be able to breath, they don't help get back deep into my sinus to open them up too. Thus I get a slowly building pressure in my head that never clears until I have to drive my self, crying in pain, to the Urgent Care Doc-in-a-Box.

So now I have 1 prescription filled, with one re-fill on file. At the low self-pay price of... $260.00. I have an appointment with my old, far more awesome allergist office on Friday to see if I can get my Sudafed refilled, something my assigned allergist won't write.

This means I can kiss that Cintuq I've been trying to save for goodbye. I'd rather breath and be without pain in the long-run. At least now, working as Baron's office assistant, I have a trickle of income that can support this. Something I didn't have 2 years ago.

C'est la vie.

Just for the record, Hummingbirds are little, finicky bastards.

Was suppose to be programming all day, but ended up driving all over town looking for hummingbird food.

Seriously.

All afternoon.

We've had a hummingbird feeder for a year now, and all winter these Anna's Hummingbirds would fight over it like it was their only source of ambrosia. Baron and I have gotten much amusement outta this. All day long, our tiny strip of a backyard was filled with dive-bombing hums and snarky squeaks of "get out of my space" ever time we stepped outdoors. They would follow us around constantly.

For the past 2 weeks, the backyard's been silent.

Why?

Because the store was out of the nectar we'd typically get them, and when I bought a competing brand, they would not touch it. Not a drop. Well, the store apparently does not carry that brand anymore. So I had to go hunting. After much internet searching and driving, I finally found a pet food store that had three bottles on the shelf. They are all mine now. Hopefully, when those run out that store will continue to stock it.

Fingers crossed.

I miss those greedy little bastards.

So, as mentioned in my recent Patreon post, I've been playing a bit of Wildstar.

I had been following the progress for Wildstar for sometime while it was in development. And the more I saw, the more I liked what was being shown. However, it had a rocky beta and even rocker development. NCSoft* gutted the entire team right before launch. And when launch did happened, it was filled with bugs and shackled with a bad credit processor who was double and triple billing people. As such, I, along with many others stayed away in droves until things shook out.

It did not take very long for the game to go F2P and I was all for trying then. But had already gotten sucked into Guild Wars 2 at the time, so my toons sat on their server, waiting for me to return.

Now was that time.

I am very, very conflicted.

I'm actually really fond of the characters I created. My two "mains" are Flounce Cravat, an Exile Aurian Tanky Stalker (paired with Rindis' Aurian Spellslinger), and Palladi Bixbyte, the Dominion Mechari DPS Warrior (Solo). I am really fond of the design since of this game and how much personality both character have just standing around. It is just out right fun to play them, both in and out of combat. I do have issues with how shallow, stuck-up, and snobbish the Dominion can be. They are the bad guys you love to hate. And I've always had issues with anti-heros. But when you set up a two-sided faction thing for gaming, someone has to have the "babies on spikes" quests....

I am fond the world, Nexus, that has been presented, with all it's little hidden charms. The fact that they didn't do just another European Fantasy** Game and make it so cohesive really tickles my world-builder fancy. I love of the detail they gave each of their toony models and animation. Each mob/creature all feel like they are part of a greater whole, no monster or mount, or clothing feels out of place, despite how wacky they can get. Of all the things I think this game did right, it's the world building.

I am fond the fact that the game itself does not take itself seriously. From the Arly Erny wannabe sound off when you level, to the outrageous mounts, to hover-boarding on the moon***, to Protostar's blatant, in-your-face marketing schemes, this game is the polar opposite of gritty SERIOUS MMOs****. The humor can be pretty snarky at times and a little rude, but rarely sexist. Which for gaming is kind unusual.

And I am fond of their more simplified combat style that, if rebound, does not have you playing keyboard pianist. Once I got rebound to something more like Neverwinter's***** setup, I was in happy land. It still has some minor issues, like the key-binds not being happy when I turn "mouse look" (also known as an action camera) on and off. This can be an issue when for some things you HAVE to click on them to activate and it takes me forever (in game terms) to toggle the mouse look on and off to click. This has led to me having to skip a quest as I simply cannot click on things fast enough to make it work. But the tells on screen are wonderful. I hope more games do things like that.

Yet, oh so annoyed that the system is soooo geared to the hard-core raider that it makes doing simple, basic things like questing convoluted, trying, or (in the worst case scenario) out and out bugged. From a UI that is too busy, to text that is very hard to read******, to important story elements scrolling by way too fast, it's impossible to keep track of things on screen. NPCs will talk over you trying to read the text (and saying completely different things from the text), then the text would blink away, only to be followed by another verbal snippet and huge text block that would be on screen for 2 seconds at most, then the NPCs leave. And it's a crap-shoot whether any of this shows up in the chat-log. Unless you are a super speed reader, good luck following the story lines with that. Oh, and the text for quest objectives is sometimes so vague you spend 1/2 your time wandering around trying to figure out what you should do until you randomly stumble on the answer.

This has frustrated me and Rindis to no end. Yet we keep coming back like masochists.

It's as if the decision was made to try and speed the questing up (which for me *IS* the game) so that people can get to the high end content (ie raiding/PvP) as fast as humanly possible. Text is just obstruction so, lets speed that up! Lost in the zone? No worries, skip half the quests and fight your way out, that should get your the level points you need. At that point, you might as well just have everyone start at max level and be done with it. Oh, wait - that was last week's promotion....

The questing is contorted. This has led to more than a few occasions of me playing the area story backwards as they keep shoving quests at me for just falling down a small incline or jogging to a vendor that just happened to be tied to a different quest hub. It has left me with a feeling of being constantly lost and not sure if I've lost plot threads. Like picking up a Tom Clancy novel then randomly turning to a different page every-time you hit the bottom of the one you just read.

This might not have been so bad if the world story hadn't been so shallow. A lot of things can be forgiven if the story is strong and you actually care about the characters involved. But no, the story got no love. And that lack of love manifested in not very well thought out questing paths and hubs. The main meat of the game in Wildstar feels more like the red-headed stepchild to the raiding crowd than the actual game itself.

I think the only thing that keeps this in check is the player housing, which is awesome. They did a really good job there, making housing something more than just a digital doll house. From gathering nodes to portals to different regions to challenges and dungeons in your backyard, they made something there worth playing with. Rindis and I have been really making good use out of the crafting stations. Craft in peace and quite instead of having to do so in the middle of one of the faction cities. Lot easier on the screen clutter and much, much easier on the processor.

All and all, I think this game still has potential it's got a lot of really good things weighted down with some bad execution on others. And at the end of the day, I am enjoying my time ingame. But I wonder for how long. Not just in my game time, but before NCSoft decides to pull the plug on something that could have shaken out to be really nice.

In the meantime, I will continue to play for now. and occasionally do sketches of my guys. But it might not be long before I head back to Guild Wars 2 or FFIX, two games that are much, much more solid with story and game play and are getting the support they deserve.

Final conclusion: Wildstar, fun game for the more advanced MMO player. Had a really rocky start. Has many small, nagging issues. NCSoft wholesale gutting of development team being one of the highest. I fear it might go the way of City of Heros.

If you want to see some of how this all plays out, I've been streaming Rindis' and I's group game sessions on Twittch. The latest two should be us trying to two man the first "dungeon", Protostar Academy, and us taking on the first of the Sim Cores. Spoilers - we failed at both. Protostar because we just don't quite have enough DPS for the last push of the last boss. Annoying but understandable. Sim Core: the Hycrest Uprising, we literately could not figure out where the bombs where we needed to to the last scenario. We were both really frustrated with that.

----

*My general opinion of NCSoft is not a good one. My original account with them was hacked from City of Heros after it closed. They used it to create a login into a different game NCSoft hosted to sell gold, then blocked me and would not let me reclaim it. This is why I never got into the Wildstar beta and was really leary of playing any NCSoft games. After all, City of Heros was closed out. If the gold farmers got into that database after the fact, what other security leaks did they have?

**Don't get me wrong, I love European Fantasy settings. I write them all the time. But world-building outside of the box is always a good thing.

***Oh, come on, who doesn't wanna try hover-boarding on the moon? Think of all that air you won't catch!

****Looking at you, Lord of the Rings Online! Conan too.

*****Neverwinter (Online) is my current high benchmark for combat. It's quick, snappy, and bound entirely to the left side of the keyboard and mouse left/right. As such, I spend all my time watching the combat and reacting, instead of having to look at the keyboard or UI and desperately try and figure out which key I'm suppose to be punching before I get my ass handed back to me on a silver platter.

******Seriously, who thought 1px wide, 9pt, light blue text on a medium blue background was a good idea? I know there will be folks crying "But why don't you use a UI add-on to change it?" My reply: Why don't they build a good UI in the first place so I don't NEED and add-on?

Hey all -

Just wanted to let you know, I've been going in and tweaking my Patreon and added new tier levels. My Patreon is mostly WIPs, and sometimes early access to work, including my current 3D animation project, Online Questing, which is moving along.

My new tiers are as follows:

Sneak Peak
$1 or more per month
Right now, you get exclusive access to all development work. Enjoy!

Early Access/Publication Discount
$5 or more per month
Get early access to the end results of all this hard work!

• Get Early Access to videos/comics/books for downloading
• Get 10% discounts on completed publications of videos/comics/books created with this Patreon
• Plus all previous rewards

You Name in Lights!
$10 or more per month
As a patron, you'll be recognized for making my work possible.

• Credits on an upcoming video/publication
• Plus all previous rewards

Digital Sketches by Smudge
$50 or more per month ∙ (limit 4)
You can request a digital sketch by ME!

• One Character
• Must be rated PG-13 or less
• Black and White (with occasional gray-scale)
• Can only combine with 1 previous month's to have second character.
• I reserve the right to decline a sketch idea (but your welcome to suggest a different one if declined)

Most of my posting have been there. I'll still post to DA, FA, SM-EW.com and DreamWidth for completed work, so no worries that I'm dispersing from these sites.

Thank you for sticking it out while I've been convalesing. Being sick for two weeks solid has been no fun. Still not truly over it but I'm well enough to try and resume at least some work.

To be honest, it's been really hard to get outta bed with the US in the knots it's been in. Watching as good friends, neighbors, and colleagues suddenly get thrown onto political chopping blocks for things that should be protected under the contitution, is more than a little disheartening. I pray things work out for the right and soon, and I know good folks like the ACLU (to name one) are on the job. I just hope they can act quicky enough before irreparable damadge is done.

Unfortunately, during my convalescence, my subscription for Maya LT bounced. This means that I can't work on E'ara for a while. Dosn't mean I won't be working on the short thou. I still have boards to clean up. So I'll probably concentrate on that instead.

Another thing I have been working on is slowly updating the Radio Comix Site for Elin as a B-Day gift to her. I'm about 1/2 way done with that project. I am currently making the site is Mobile/Tablet friendly, and will be updating the front page last to be less bloggy and more "This is who we are and what we do" with the added advantage that the site doesn't have to be poke often on our end while keeping good info up for others.

Between all this, my commission docket is mighty empty. If you want a commission by me, now's the time to speak up!

I think that's it for news from me. Will hopefully have something visual to post later this week.

Peace.

Setting my goals for the week -

Work on Spot Illo for Mary
Getting more sewing done (need to finish some placemats as gifts for folks, finish before FC)
Work on my 3D animation project

Bonus - sew a floor length barista style apron of fleece for myself. What? I can dream, can't I?

So for my 3D, I have bit the bullet and started reboning E'lara from scratch. Screw Maya's auto-rigger. Screw ART since it won't run on Maya LT. No more counting on PhysX for cloth and hair. No more counting on Unreal's chain bone physics. I'm just gonna have to do it all myself, as part of the animations, like I should have done in the first place. All of the above claim to make the art's/animator's job easier but all it's done is give me headaches and frustration. So, it's back to the basics for me.

Cross you fingers that I can make this work, finally.

After getting basic business stuff for SM-EW done, I opened up Maya LT for the first time in nearly 3 months. And of course, an update reset all my settings. Easy fix, but annoying.

Got E'lara out and tried to do a little animation. Was not happy with the outcome. Ended up deleting the file.

Not sure how I want to proceed anymore. I feel like I've run myself into a rut and not sure how to get out. I can see what I want in my head, but getting it out is another matter. Getting it out in anything close to a timely fashion has been nigh impossible.

For a short, 3 month project this is really been a long year...

Big job is done, just need to do another round of edits and the like. 50 pieces of art in 5 weeks, no weekends. I am ready for a break.

So, I am warming up my sewing machine and working on a geeky Pikachu dress for Halloween (and other geeky occasions).

Here's the fabric and pattern (version A, with the short sleeves and flared skirt) I'm going to use.



Wish me luck, I'm hoping to be done so I can ware it at the Halloween comic fest at WowCool Comics in Cupertino.... which is today.... crap.