 Apartment Hunting -
posted by Dante on 5.23.2004 - 10:24 pm
Scouring the East Bay for a new apartment is like touring through hell. Unlike Dante, our tour guides through hell are the uncooperative, ignorant, or absentee office staff. Some of our favorite games this weekend were; 'where do we park', 'mystery smell', or 'guess the stain'. You walk through the model unit-assuming they have one-and think, "this wouldn't be so bad ... if I owned exactly this furniture and these decorative pieces." But my couch is bigger than that, our kitchen art clashes with countertops, and where the hell am I going to put my desk and computers?
Then there are the awesome places. You'll find the newest complexes are completely set up. They have central air, tons of outlets, huge windows, and just otherwise outfitted to the nines. Of course those are also the most ridiculously expensive places on the map.
Given the options, we are probably going to opt for one of the most expensive places we can find. Its based entirely on wanting to be happy with where we live. I don't want to come home to road noise. I don't want to worry if I'll have a place to park my car when I get home. I'm tired of washing dishes by hand, and I'm sick of using a community laundry facility. I want to come home to a place I am proud of, and I want a home I can be proud to invite friends and family over to see.
We have a lot more looking to do, but we've finally managed to identify the age of the complex as one of the simplest questions we can use to determine if we should bother making an appointment. Anyone who lives in Fremont and has a recommendation for a great place to live, I'm looking for help.
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 the comic
posted by Christopher on 5.24.2004 - 8:51 am
well, this certaintly did not take four hours. each card came in under two, though, making it so i could do bite-sized chunks throughout the week. this is one of the first strips in awhile that i'm truly happy with.
to start with, we've introduced a new convention for the word balloons. the demons will probably (from here on out) speak in gray bubbles with yellow text. this makes it so you know who is speaking without seeing them. the yellow on gray also allows huge word balloons without overwhelming the page with black and white.
i've also come full circle, and am now doing the inks in adobe illustrator again. the inks were one of the most time-consuming parts, but after practicing with the brush tool a bit, i'm finding it fun and a lot quicker. the tarot deck was the ideal place to start practicing w/ this tool. if it ended up looking a little blocky or heavy-handed, that only ended up adding to the authenticity and character of the card art. the new portrait of dante in the lower right is telling of what the real striip will look like w/ more finely-controlled pen inks.
eventually i'll have the full-sized tarot cards up for your scrutiny (probably around the time we finish the sketchbook and get it ready for the public). you'll have to sign up for that, though.
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