It's golden week in Japan this week. It's basically spring break for everyone and everywhere you go it's shoulder-to-shoulder. We've been getting some amazing weather lately which made this past weekend extra crazy. As a freelancer, I tend to be active when there aren't as many people in your face but it's nice to sometimes chug through the trenches and do shit. Spider-man 3 this week! Stoked!

I went to an Italian club on Saturday and was surprised to see so many ginos in Tokyo. It's just like being back in Toronto except they aren't in muscle shirts but Armani suits. lol It was also not nearly as pretentious as I thought and I had a pretty good time. They were playing re-mixed retro for a large part of the night and a bit of house. I likey.

I've finally moved on to final pages this week. I'm still trying to get used to drawing big again. I was drawing at letter size for SMLMJ and BFX so shifting to standard J-size which is B4 (250×353 mm) has been a bit of a pain. I may just stick with smaller if I find I'm having too many problems.

TAK

All better now. I'm still taking it easy though and not going out too much. Being sick for a month on and off is not something worth repeating. Ever. Forever, ever. I've had plenty of time to slowly chip away at doing my taxes in the meantime. Always a thrilling event. Not.

New solits are out. I had 2 covers in there. The one below and another un-SMLMJ related one where I got to draw boobies. You'll have to look for that one. Anyway, we toyed with doing a homage cover or just a general cast cover. The four on the left were the original ideas and we expanded on C to include Spider-man. I didn't wanna just plop him in there so tried to indirectly include him. I think it illustrates the series in a nutshell.

TAK

I managed to kick the smoking but can't seem to kick this freakin' cold. One outta two ain't bad.

Not much happening lately. Working on breakdown edits and sleeping a lot in order to get better. I've been reading up on the shooting at Virginia Tech, too. So sad. On the bright side, Spider-Man 3 opens in Japan on the 1st! 2 weeks! The earliest opening in the world, yo! I'm SO there.

I thought I'd show a page of thumbnails from my ninja thing today. It's comin' together. Slowly.

TAK

So I went and got a haircut yesterday. I've been going to this shit place that costs only 1000 yen (10 bucks) just because I'm a cheap bastard and don't care what I look like. Well, I got lost on the train ride over which was a bit of an ordeal and it took me an extra hour to get back on track since I did the stupid fall-asleep-and-wake-up-dazed-and-confused-10-stops-from-where-I-shoulda-been thing. Well, anyway. I get back to where I started, get on the right train and I'm stuck sitting in front of this dude who's pants are on too tight and his gut is spilling over his belt. On top of that, he's wearing a shirt that's 2 sizes too small which is, like, totally gross. Oh, and he was also squeezing and strokin' his belly like it was a fine persian cat. How's that for a Saturday morning, eh? Dayam...

Anyway, I have a bunch of other crap to bitch about but I'll keep it light and positive. I'm just cranky cuz I'm not smoking. Yeah, yeah. I was supposed to quit along time ago but Japan sorta did me in and I'm back on track to quitting. I even had my sister mail me patches from Canada since I couldn't find any here. That's dedication dammit!

Uhh, more art. This one's an early sketch of one of the characters but she's gone through a bunch of changes since so I figure it's okay to show this. I was going for a classic ninja look with the baggy pants and all but decided to keep it more swank and spy-like for the final design. I was also told it wasn't hawt enough, too. So, you get the nazi in the last post and a ninja in this one. Booyah. TAK

Things are progressing quite well with work. I can't give too many details about it other than it's about ninjas in an alternate reality. A reality with nazis. Oh, yes. Mary Jane to Nazis. Talk about shifting gears. The first arc looks to be about 40 pages. I'm working with increments of 4 and 8 in order to make it easily printable and magazine friendly. Hey, any little bit counts, yo.

The breakdowns are almost done. It went through a few edits while I forced myself to draw and story tell from right to left. It was more challenging a task than I originally thought, btw. It's not just a matter of flipping everything but making sure it flows and keeps the eye active in the right direction. I can now say I'm comi-dextrous.

So, yeah. That's where I'm at after 4 months. I'm not sure whether that's good or bad but at least I'm not drunk in a rice patty somewhere. Although I did come close to it this weekend...

A piece of art:
TAK