I have decided I want to be an artist for a living

After much (25 years worth) thought, I may have decided what I want to do with my life. I want to draw.

Its sorta funny to me that I want to do something like this. I literally never thought I would want to do something like this. Or that I could. I didn't realize I had any drawing ability until I was about out of high school. I just started drawing little doodles and being half decent a them. But still never really considered it.

In high school I wanted to be a writer. I was never really that good at writing, but I think it was just high school. Obviously I still like to write. I keep up on this blog fairly often, but I think when it all comes down to it this is all I would ever want to do with writing. Have some journal that a few people might read.

In junior high I wanted to be a Broadway star. REALLY LAME!! I know. But I just discovered musicals. Like Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Newsies, Rent..... All that. Plus I also had learned that I could sing. Well. Not just belt out a few notes, I do have a very good singing voice.

But once again, it seems that all of that was just a passing fancy. I love to sing. Absolutely love it, but I don't think I could do it professionally. Well, I could, but I wouldn't enjoy it. I like to sing just to sing. I think if I had to constantly put thought into it, it would loose its flavor.

Even funnier still, in elementary I wanted to be a paleontologist. Yeah. I love dinosaurs. Little known fact about me. I love them!! They are so wicked cool. I love going to the Dino Park, I like reading all the little facts about the dinos, I have a bunch of really nice dino books my mommy got me when I was little still. Dinosaurs are wicked cool.

But I digress. Alot. I want to draw. I love it. I think about stuff I can draw, I think about how to draw things different or better, its like all I can think about. As many passing fancies as I've had when thinking about something to do with a career, I worry a little that this may also be a passing fancy.

Then again, I feel really excited about the possibility of doing this for a career. None of my other passing fancies have ever got me this excited. Like even thinking about a future with it all just feels right. I feel like its something I can do. I have a future with it. It may not be a good money future, and I'll probably always have to have at least a part time job, but that just sounds so right. Still have a job that gets me out of the house, but also have time to draw. It all just sounds so wonderful.

Yeah. But onto other stuff. I had another doctors appointment today. I am still showing signs of having cell break down, but not on a high level or anywhere close to me getting anemic. So that's good.

I am down to 50 mg of Prednisone, which is good. My doctor wants to get more aggressive about lowering my dose. Prednisone can do terrible things to your body, so I don't want to be on a high dose for a long time. We are going to do a cell count in a week to see what's going on with that, and if things are still looking good we may be dropping it again in a week. So yay there.

I also learned that the cold is a HUGE factor in all of this so I HAVE to stay warm. Or I could end up needing more transfusions. That sucks though, cause I freaking LOVE the cold weather. I feel like I'm the biggest jerk to myself. I've been so excited for the cold weather to get here, it finally does, and I can't even enjoy it. Super lame.

Yep. I have a few ideas for a cheap Halloween costume that I hope I can pull off by this weekend. Missing all the work I did really limited my Halloween costume money, which sucks, since I had the best idea and greatest costume that I can now not do :( Oh well. There is always next year.

Yep. I think that is all. So toodles :)

Scribbled from beginning to end

Here is the total history of Scribble People to the best of my memory...

Scribble People started as a weird little sketch I'd done to try and show my friend what I'd seen in my basement (long story). I tried to explain how it had eyes, but you couldn't see them. In the end I felt frustrated and scribbled this creepy little guy. I'm not sure where the original sketch has gone off to, but when I find it I'll put it up.

Well that was when I was 18 or 19. Then one day I found the book that I'd put the little sketch into and showed it to my then boyfriend (now husband) and he encouraged me to keep drawing them, and suggested we turn them into a comic.

So I started sketching them EVERYWHERE. Here is one such page of doodles.

Its only a piece of a page obviously (I couldn't include the whole thing. They where cussing and making rude gestures :P )

Then I decided, if I wanna do this comic thing I should see what I can come up with. Here is the very first Scribble People comic:

I always hated the Emo thing. Those stupid kids drove me NUTS!!! So that's why I did that comic.

Then I had the comic. I did almost 40 comics before taking a hiatus of sorts. I felt unmotivated and like they just couldn't do much. You can't show to much movement when your characters are silhouettes, and I just didn't know what to do. I spent half the time thinking of how to work the comic around my characters. It was tiring and I felt myself burnt out on the whole idea. Plus all the editing that I had to do to it in photoshop was just so time consuming. I really didn't want to give it up though. I enjoyed drawing, and I really wanted to break into the whole scene (which I still haven't done) but I didn't know what to do.

Then one weekend I went with Mikey up to Ogden while he did school stuff. I borrowed (stole) a notebook of his and just started doodling pics of Oliver and Simon (as I do when I'm bored and have paper). While drawing I did an outline of Oliver's head, sort of liking the creepy almost ghost like effect it had on him I did his whole body. This is what I drew:

I was pretty impressed with myself, and continued to draw what I at the time dubbed "Creepy Scribbles".

After awhile I started adding details. I was surprised at how easily all of this came to me. And I filled almost half the book in just a couple days of Creepy Scribbles. These are some:

I showed them to my aunt and uncle, while looking at them my uncle said I should put stories to them. I really liked the idea. I was enjoying drawing these so much that I started considering redoing the whole Scribble People site and just doing Creepy Scribbles.

The idea of putting stories to them got me thinking about stories that where already out there and I started doing Creepy Scribble versions of Disney princesses. Here is Snow White:

Ariel:

Cinderella:

She is based on an idea from my sister, who said "You should do Cinderella stabbing the prince with her shoe." I did the sisters instead of the prince, mostly because I never liked them.

Alice:

Then I did Little Red Riding hood (even though she is not a Disney princess). She is the one I'm the most proud of so far.

I started to think of other characters I could draw, and I thought of Harley Quinn (This is for you Neisha)

Drawing her made me think of The Fool, so it wasn't long before I wanted to do a Scribble People Tarot (which I am currently working on). Here are my Lovers:

The more I did the new style the more I really didn't want to go back to doing the silhouettes type style. Drawing them the new way was so easy and versatile, I didn't want to give it up.

But I didn't want to give up on my Scribbles either. So it hit me: Do the Scribbles in the new style!!

I did the first one, and really enjoyed it. I feel like they look better, I don't have limitations on trying to draw things. I have a process now and it kinda makes me feel more professional. Its been alot of fun.

So for anyone confused, the characters old and new:

Now for those that follow the Scribble People fan page (on facebook) or the Twitter know about the problems I had redoing Minion. Mostly because I wanted the comic Minion to match my Minion. This is the first thought:

I'm really glad I decided to change it though, because I just learned that my scanner has a hard time seeing the color of orange I did. Good to know. My Minion is a complicated arrangement of mostly black with bits of orange and white. She literally looks like someone spilled black paint on an orange tabby cat. I love it. But obviously being mostly black wouldn't work for drawing, I would be back at square one with silhouettes.

So it was back to the drawing board. As some people know, how they named Minion is based on a true story with me and Mikey. But it didn't happen with the Minion we have. The original was a stray I found at a friends house, but I was unable to take him home. So I decided to combine the Minion I have with the Minion I wanted, who was mostly white except for a few orange marks. I changed to orange to black and bam! New Minion:

So there you have it. A history of Scribble People. It has been an interesting ride, and I look forward to where it goes. So I guess I'll leave you all with that. I feel like drawing more. Toodles!