Something new this time, inked lip studies. But not just inked, which wouldn't be all that unusual, since Nezumi's been into ink for a while now. No, this time Nezumi's inked, not with a pen, but a brush. Which is an entirely different kettle of cheese, to say the least.

For the first time she's used a brush seriously, they didn't turn out too bad. Not to mention, she's made a bit of a breakthrough in terms of drawing teeth, especially on the top two. Bottom one not so much, but it's still got it's charm.

In other news, Nezumi's decided that she really needs more training. So based on that, she's decided that come Monday, she's going to be signing up for an evening life drawing class down at the Ottawa School of Art, starting this spring. 27 hours of model drawing, should have a really positive effect on Nezumi's work. She's also going to be taking the online drawing course over at WetCanvas, as well as getting more involved in the forums there and at ConceptArt.org. It all helps, seriously.

Oh, and Nezumi's decided that she's going to draw 100 pair of lips. These are 26-29.

So yeah, today's the day Nezumi starts taking big strides into the big time. After almost three months working on her webcomic, Xeno's Paradise, she's decided she's ready to show herself to the world, and maybe recoup some of her expenses while she's at it.

So not only has she started to promote her little gang of slimes in earnest, but she's also created her very first donation wallpaper! Heck, her very first wallpaper of any sort.

For those not familiar, a donation wallpaper is an exclusive reward given to folks who donate or tip to keep a webcomic running, featuring the characters of the comic itself. But Nezumi's taking it even further. While anyone can get a copy of the wallpaper for a $1 donation (pretty cheap, huh?), anyone who donates $5 or better gets entered in a draw at the end of the month to win an original piece of art at no extra charge!

Astute readers will realize no doubt that she stole borrowed the idea from Erin Lindsay's wonderful Venus Envy. But hey, imitation is the sincerest form of plagiarism, eh?

Lessee...

Comic Genesis has been a bitch lately, so if you're a Xeno's Paradise fan, it'll get reposted to the community at xenosparadise on days where the site's not updating in the morning. They say that they're getting a new server, but if they haven't done so by the time XP hits strip #30, Nezumi's going to start looking elsewhere for hosting.

Big power outage last night, almost 3 hours without. Not as bad as it could have been, since we had an emergency power supply for one of the lights in the living room, but still annoying. Turns out it was the fault of a faulty line at the substation, the whole subdivision went black.

Work's been pretty bleh. The clients are good, the work is good, the hours suck ass. Even two or three hours a week would make a world of difference right now, but she's just not getting them. At this rate, she might have to look at other companies.

On the other side of the coin, the art's been going great. Take a look at Nezumi's dA site to see how she's been doing. A lot of crap, to be sure, but the more recent ink work is showing a lot of improvement. Maybe she'll be an illustrator yet, if she keeps this up.

Things are going pretty good with the mate, too. Although there may be a short incommunicado period when shi moves early next month. Hopefully it won't be too much, or Nezumi will go through coyote withdrawal.

Can't think of anything else at the moment. Oh, well.

Then it's time for blasphemy

Not too many of you probably know this, but Nezumi has a dream. An artistic dream.

Without getting too wordy about it, Nezumi dreams of the day when she can be a "real" illustrator and comics creator, and derive some portion of her income from art.

But she looks at the work of friends like this who, as far as she can tell, aren't doing that, and it seems like a long, long, hard, uphill battle. Before Nezumi can even start to dream, she'll have to be many times better than she is.

Not that she can't. It's just sometimes a bit daunting.

Nezumi is just astounded at how great the response to her Pizza Bat image has been! As of today, it is the most viewed out of all the drawings she's posted on deviantART, which is pretty much all of her work.

So since people seem to like the little critter so much (or at least, they find it delicious), Nezumi's offering it as not only a print, but a coffee mug too! Heck, you can get it as a postcard or magnet if you really want, have some fun with it!

Nezumi's sure that a lot of folks who have her friended are among the viewers, so she'd like to thank you all, and to encourage you to keep watching her stuff, and to keep following Xeno's Paradise, now entering its third amazing week! Now with dialogue!

You know, being an artist can be a real pain in the ass sometimes. Nezumi was working on the new (well, three weeks from now) XP strip, and suddenly realized wow, it's 7pm and she hadn't even started making supper yet. Needless to say, business happened shortly after.

Not that things aren't weird even while she's working. In fact, Nezumi's come to the conclusion that not only is her inspiration dangerously unbalanced, there's a chance it might be psychotic. The evidence before the court is here and here.

And hey, don't blame Nezumi if she does something even weirder. You were warned!