Happy New Year – Welcome 2011!

I just got out of my first step-class of the new year, and yeah it hurt, but back on the wagon.

As I do every new year, I got to thinking about the year that passed, and this time about the decade that passed, and WOW. There has been a LOT packed into the last ten years but in the interests of keeping a reasonably sized blog entry, I will keep the retrospective to 2010.

I went back and looked at my resolutions post from last year. While I didn’t achieve everything exactly as I wanted to, I think I did a whole lot better than I would have if I hadn’t set the resolutions, so I’m calling it a win.

  • Got down a little over half of my weight loss goal, and more importantly maintained it through some pretty tough diet-times so I made some good habits. Time to get back to posting the weekend weigh in. Accountability helps. I will continue to work on this in 2011.
  • Finished the full 10k Terry Fox run in September and I don’t think anyone was more surprised about it than I was! I have to admit, there was no dignity by the end of it, the red face, wheezing, snot, blisters and sweating really kills the photo op, but I made it. Haven’t decided what to set goal-wise this year. Maybe I’ll try the 10k again and be one of those people who breezed by me saying stupid things like, “Only 10k? They really need to make this more challenging”. All joking aside, I do need to set something, that was very motivational.
  • Got a lot more accomplished in the web-comics ring. Not what I thought I could do, but one of the things I found out was that there was a heck of a lot more to learn than I thought there was. Met some great people who have been an enormous help with the technical side of learning and although I am going to have to seek professionals for some of this stuff, I am still looking into some coursework for the new year. I’m thinking of leaning toward apps development, but I have no idea what I need to do to even start that. There’s just so much really cool and inspiring stuff out there.
  • My amazing sweetie got me a Cintiq for Christmas, (best husband EVER). The last 3 strips have been completely digital. No paper trail at all. Pretty cool. I’ve only tried digital clean-up a few times and I didn’t like it. Took too long and killed the line quality, (great for animation, not great for comics). But I’m working on it. Some friends have recommended Manga Studio, so that’s one more bit of software to add to my learning curve. The Cintiq is an amazing tool and it’s going to make short work of my storyboard contracts this year. (yay!) And since it cuts the drawing time, I can spend a little bit on background elements.
  • I HAVE to set up proper model sheets for myself this year. For whatever reason I never did that and regardless of style evolution, (every comic goes through that) half the time Fiona and Trish end up looking like their own stunt doubles.
  • I also have to get and learn Quick Books or my accountant is going to fillet me with my own receipts.

That’s it. Those are the big ones for 2011. (I’m really stoked about going into a whole new decade.)

Thanks so much again to everyone who reads, comments and keeps coming back. I hope that whatever your resolutions are, (or aren’t, whatever, not judging) you have a safe, happy and healthy new year!

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Starting Tomorrow

Starting Monday
Starting Monday

Starting Right After the Holidays
Starting Right After the Holidays

Knight and Dave