So much for that New Year's Resolution

Actually, I didn't make any resolutions regarding keeping the Blog up to date. Perhaps I should have, though, as I've fallen horribly behind.

Here's a quick update and a promise that I'll try updating every Tuesday. No, my fingers are not crossed... okay, yes they are.

Recently got invited to join Empty Room Studios, a great group of creative people that my brother Jeff is already a part of. I'm also doing some work for their sister project - Baeg Tobar, which is a shared world setting. Lots of great work by some damn fine writers and artists. It's gotten me back into drawing a lot, always a good thing. Just finished up some pieces for Mongoose on their Starship Troopers game, my first work through ERS. When I get permission I'll post 'em up.

Got lots of other stuff going on, too much for this short update. Busy year so far.

More soon.

-bob

Zombies!

As promised, here's the page I've been working on in between HTML and design assignments. Looking forward to inking this as well, but more pages must be pencilled first!

I know there are issues with it, but I'm blind as only a creator can be. Please feel free to post any comments/critique. I'd like to make it better if I can.



Here's a closeup:

Random rambling

December has been quite busy so far. I'm not going to complain, as it's always better to have work than to not. My plate is quite full, however, and I find I have to keep postponing non-client related things. Like updating the website, unfortunately. I'd like to have SOMETHING new up by the end of the year, but no promises.

Jeff and I did manage to get together a proposal for a comic book series, finally.
Here's the link to a low-res pdf of the pages. It's about 4mb because of the cover, just fyi.

I've got quite a bit of drawing to do, but design and web work keep crowding it. I'd rather be drawing, on the whole, but illustration just doesn't have the margins that web work does. Especially for a traditional pen-and-ink guy like myself. I need to concentrate more on color - a New Year's resolution coming up, methinks. I am quite fond of a narrative page I'm workin on right now for a book called "The A-Z of Horror." It's zombies, luckily enough (one of my favorite monsters) and the first page allows me to get as icky as I want to be with it. I hope to have it done by the end of the week and I'll post it up when it's done.

I'm redesigning a site for a client using CSS in the same way that I'm redesigning mine (although much quicker, you can be assured). It's starting to feel a little easier as I get used to it (I know usually remember that the attributes for the Margin property run clockwise from the top). The amount of control you are given is fantastic and I've started to see that designs I used to approach with trepidation are now emminently do-able with CSS.

I have had some little time to play GUN for the Xbox, so obviously I do have SOME free time at night to engage in non-work distractions. I finished it yesterday and had more fun playing the game than I had any right to. It's ridiculous and violent and so very non-PC, but maybe that's it's charm.

Anybody else watching The Triangle on Sci Fi this week? Moe and I are enjoying it, flaws and all. Kinda wish it was a regular series, as it would fit quite nicely into the slot recently vacated by Threshold, which started with promise and quickly became stale.

Alright, enough rambling. Seeya later.

-bob

The cruellest month..

T. S. Elliot said it was April, but I think November might give it a run for the money. This 11th month in particular has been difficult for us and folks we know, with deaths, hardship and struggles of every stripe.

In general I try to let adversity roll off my back - let if flow around me and through me without touching me, to borrow some imagery from Frank Herbert. Sometimes, however, the general pile of crap gets high enough that I can't help but let it color my perspective. I get more testy, more bitter and frustrated. My emotional reactions are more sensitive and I get teary-eyed or angry much easier. It shoots my concentration all to hell and I find myself having to do things twice to get it right.

And I get a little more introspective - obviously. ;)

So, through a glass darkly - blues tinted glasses, I guess - here are some random scribblings.

Thanksgiving is coming up, that uniquely American holiday. Unlike religious celebrations wherein we are supposed to remember to be thankful - Lent, Ramadan - Thanksgiving revels more in celebrating what we have than in reminding us what others do not. I like Thanksgiving, actually, but it's been imbued with a sense of irony this year that I usually don't notice.

And following the holiday theme - what's with the desperation of the retailers this year? Christmas stuff started going up in various stores two weeks before HALLOWEEN. All this rush to market has done is make me keenly aware how manufactured Christmas has become. I almost want to see a completely different holiday take over here - something non-religous. Let commercialism have its own celebration and return the observance of Christ's nominal birthday to those who truly believe. I'm sure the corporations would get behind it. At the very least a secular holiday means they could finally tap Jews, Muslims, Hindus and all the other potential markets locked out by the religious nature of Christmas.

Well, just read good news from a friend - their baby is doing great despite some tense moments in the days after her birth. One nice thing about having your emotions on a rough edge - the highs are really high. So enough of my cynical ramblings. Sorry for the bitter taste to this post.

-bob

A (new) beginning (of sorts)

Hi Folks,

The first page of the redesigned site is now up (and about time, too). I'll put the link in the section to the right, for those coming to the blog "from away," as it were. (It's www.bobcram.com.) While still very much a work-in-progress, the basic structure is complete. It's details now, which means I'm finding the devil at every turn.

It's been an interesting process so far. I'd gotten pretty comfortable with my current amount of HTML knowlege and hadn't really kept up with newer techniques. Rather than slide slowly into obselescence, I decided to make the revamp of the site a sort of CSS workshop. I've learned a lot about CSS in the past month or so and done it the only way I know how - throwing myself into the process and learning as I go. It leads to a lot of mistakes, but those are teaching tools as well.

I've also been struggling with how to approach using this blog. I've got a more personal rambling area at LiveJournal, and I think I'll keep that as a sillier, less formal space. Not that this blog is going to turn into a staid, technical journal. Not sure I could even manage that. I will, however, refrain from posting ridiculous conversations with friends on IM here as well as making sure I've had enough coffee before posting. I expect the tone will all sort itself out after a couple of months.

Please take a look at the new design when and if you get a chance and let me know what you think. Especially if there's something I can improve on. I'm working on the illustration area right now, so with any luck there'll at least be some interesting pictures to look at soon.

Thanks,

-bob

Welcome to the Effect

Well, this is me, trying to figure out what to do here. Testing the waters, so to speak. In the coming days I should get a handle on this and start really using it, but until then...

Here's this sad little post, this trembling little matchgirl of a blog standing in the snow, looking forlornly in at at the warm glow of the Blogosphere.

*sniff*

-bob