Or, Still Spinning My Wheels Around Town...

   Since nothing much has been happening around here over the past couple of weeks, I thought I'd just post this one quickly and get it out of the way.  I had been doing various things to keep myself busy in the absence of paying work, but I plan on getting serious about job-hunting after I return from a trip to Florida to visit some relatives over the next weekend.  Times are actually tough all over, and not just for me.  The only thing I can say about these relatives right now is that their small business is feeling the heat from the slumping economy and that they're about to lose a house they've been living in since they had it built back when they saw better days.

   If all goes well, maybe they can settle for a more modest home while they get their business back up and running.  It's really quite affected by the tourism business in Florida, so things aren't likely to pick up real soon.  On the other hand, I could be having those kinds of headaches someday, with home mortgage and expenses and kids and all, so I'm actually quite lucky to be where I am right now.

   At best, I can land a part-time job which helps me pay off some of my remaining bills and gives me a chance to snap up those few things which my modest means could avail me to -- such as the Brother MFC-6490 large-formate scanner-printer combo that I've had my eye on for a while now.  I've decided that that's all I really need right now, as far as my art hobby is concerned.

On Wednesday Comics

   Thinking about my recent art projects has me considering doing something different.  It all goes back to that panel at the Baltimore Comic Con this year with the DC creative staff which put out their Wednesday Comics project this past summer.  After getting a look at some webcomics (including various fan-comics being put up here on dA), I'm considering doing something along these lines with projects of my own.

   The format will be decidedly different and quite simplified from the manga-esque style that I've been envisioning.  Instead of a cinematic multi-page story, I'd be going for a single page of sequential panels which tell only a sufficient part of a story to move it along, albeit with a bit of a cliffhanger ending leading into the next week's installment.  It'd be more like reading the old newspaper strips which helped launch the American comicbook industry back in the 20th Century.

   The only drawback to this would be my own constant nemesis, Shikamaru's disease.  I'm such a lazybones now that I fear that I'd just falter halfway through a week's work and leave it all unfinished.  Hopefully, the project of this past week may be a sign that I can shove this monkey off my back long enough to get it started.

Artbox Dialemma

   Which leads me into this last bit.  I've already set my mind of a relatively less expensive option for a large format scanner but, without steady income outside of limited unemployment insurance benefits that'll go only for so long, I've put that off.  More likely, I've got my eyes on something more within my means for now.

(Edited from Original Post below)

   One thing that I'm finding use for in these meagre times is an old carry-case or two that I've had over the years.  An ArtBin®. case that I brought recently just couldn't lend itself to carrying pieces of scrap paper or small steno-size notebooks and tended to get all the pencils and pens that I carried jumbled up, and it started breaking apart on one corner, so I pulled out an attaché case that I used for my early contract assignments in the downtown business districts and at school as well as an ArtBin® pencil/pen case and have put these back into use.  The whole package should be able to hold standard notebook-size sheets and even some sketchpads up to 11" × 14", or I may make use of a lighter notebook PC case for pads up to 9" × 12" instead.  Either way, it's far cheaper than going out and blowing over $20 (USD) on something that might not work out as well as expected.

That's all for now.

-- Abayo!