3 hours, 4 minutes on December 2nd, 2002 10:00 AM December 3rd to.... 7:00 PM?!?! December 3rd, 2002.... So that's 9 hours straight... Current total to now is 12 hours and 4 minutes. 7PM to 11PM. Involuntary system halt has destroyed the working image. Retrieval impossible. Fucking Windows XP... 16 hours of work, WASTED. STARTING OVER. I swear to primus I'll never, EVER pay for ANY software ever again. 11PM to 1:23 AM - 2 hours and 23 minutes on December 3/4th, 2002: I have nearly all of the line work redone, and I'm using a temporary JPEG I made as a tracing guide. Still need to do the linking, some hair, and the left eye. Some of the redone details are inferior to the originals, but I fucked my hand up when I punched a hole through a wall, and I can't get anything to come out exactly right. Goddamn Windows. I'm going to sleep now. Session time - 2 hours and 23 minutes TOTAL time - 14 hours and 27 minutes Resuming work at 10:39 AM, December 4th, 2002. Some fucking idiot kept calling here, and the phone rang for 40 minutes straight, so my concentration is more than a little blitzed. Doing a CG of this size eats up all available CPU cycles, so playing MP3s for arting music is out. Christ, there's nothing on TV, the Amiga is shot, the 386 has nothing in terms of sound, and the iMac isn't here... So I have nothing capable of playing anything cool while I CG. BARF! Fuck, it sure sucks have no cable AND no internet access..... Lineart basics are done, linking isn't. I did the underwear and skin basetones, I'm working on the hair, and I'll move on to the stripes, eyes, and accessories. Bleah. I did all this shit last night while listening to hours of sitcoms, and the way my memory works is killing me. I'm replaying segments of the episodes in my head as I redo what I was doing when they were aired. ARGH! Well, back to work. Current time is.... 11:31 AM. Hair base done. Working on stripes and tail. 11:55 AM. Finished that... Starting on linking... even though I'll just be flying by the seat of my pants. The book I bought on inking is of little help... I guess I should just study some of my manga and comics to at least ape the techs. In that case, I'm taking a break. Current time is 12:08 PM. Session time - 1 hour and 29 minutes TOTAL time - 15 hours and 56 minutes Resuming at 12:23 AM, December 5th, 2002. Having trouble getting the eyes to look right, due to the fucktarded angle of Torako's head versus the angle of the lighting.... ARGH!!! Anyway, I suppose I'll skip them for now and work on the skin shading. God DAMN... The original version of this pic was looking so nice, too! It was almost done! ALL I NEEDED WAS A FUCKING BACKGROUND! 1:11 AM. Break time... I'm really tired... Today was really busy (read: productive. I got an Atari 2600), and I'm worn out... Tomorrow (today still) isn't going to look less busy... Argh... Fucking Windows! Fuck it to hell! Session time: 48 minutes TOTAL time - 16 hours and 44 minutes. 1:49 AM, December 6th, 2002. Working on line linking... 3:15 AM. Finished the linking, more or less. Also fixed a lot of edges and ends. Starting on the shading, I suppose.... Damn, I'm tired... and I can't go to sleep until I can locate a part of the house that isn't crawling with fleas. =_= 3:34 AM. Finished preliminary highlighting and shading. Hallucinating. Sleep time... =_= Session time: 1 hour and 45 minutes TOTAL time - 18 hours and 29 minutes 12:22 PM, December 6th, 2002. Starting secondary shading on skin layer one. 1:19 PM. Break time. Finished the shading.... at least the first half of the first shading layer.... =_=... Session time: 57 minutes TOTAL time - 19 hours and 26 minutes 6:52 PM, December 6th, 2002. Starting on secondary highlighting and tweaking some of the primary shading. 7:50 PM. Secondary highlighting pretty much done. I don't want to overdo it... Reality isn't quite so glossy. Almost back to where I was before the big crash.... so I had better start making backups right now. Eh, may as well take a break, too. Man, I found an S-Video to RCA adaptor... Oh my fucking GOD. TWENTY FUCKING DOLLARS! For something I could make in an hour with a soldering iron and scrap copper! I would if I knew the pinouts, but having no internet access kinda stifles any kind of reference needed to bring my creative impulses to fruition. BARF. Session time: 58 minutes TOTAL time - 20 hours and 24 minutes 12:25 AM, December 7th, 2002. Resuming... Working on some shading and highlight tightening... 1:20 AM. Pretty done with this session's shading and stuff... Did the ear, stripes, and toes... I still need to start on the hair, possibly the face, and definitely the tail. I really liked the original more than this, but until I can time travel, I'm stuck. Right about now is where I'd be studying some last-minute techs, but since I'm stuck offline, that's a no-go too. Break time, I suppose. I don't want to force myself to CG... it leads to more mistakes. I think after I get the hair done, I'll be back to where I was when the system ate my last working image... Session time: 55 minutes TOTAL time - 21 hours and 19 minutes 1:00 AM, December 8th, 2002. Starting some touch up work. 1:35 AM. Done with that, I suppose. Started on some secondary shading. 2:07 AM. Done with that too. Did some more highlighting and fixed the eyes up a bit. I think I need to shade the hair to help pull it all together... the currently flat areas are detracting from the overall look, so it's hard CGing the rest of the picture properly. 2:17 AM. Fixed the linework some more... the hair can wait for a while longer. I still need to properly shade the stripes, add a couple to the ear, add some vents to the ear assembly, and research some more CG techs. I think I can do the research right now, if my archives are packing the right material. Session time: 1 hour and 17 minutes TOTAL time - 22 hours and 36 minutes 1:00 PM, December 8th, 2002. Working on hair shading.... 2:02 PM. Almost done with the primary shading.... I'm not using my hair technique... the image is too large to do that properly. It won't really matter though, since I'm not trying to CG this as.... harshly (?) as my other stuff. I consider it more practice than production. Last night's research was a little helpful, but it could have been moreso if I weren't trapped offline. If I can finish this CG before December 11th, I'll be able to upload it, and some other files. At the rate I'm going now, I should be able to make that deadline.... provided nothing stupid happens. Damn... nothing on TV but fucking sports and infomercials. I deleted SNES9X and all of my SNES roms, so I have nothing to play. I didn't REALLY want to get rid of the Ranma 1/2 RPG I was playing, but fuck it. I was pissed. 2:38 PM. Hair shading is done, I guess. It doesn't look quite right... COMPARED TO THE ORIGINAL CG, but that's a given. Stripes and tail are next, and then I can move on to overall editing. Final fixes on the lineart, shading correction, and whatever small details that still need adding. 3:07PM. Tertiary and accessory shading complete. Detail step 3 complete, 4 pending approval. The picture is essentially done, and all I really need to do is a couple more touch ups and throw a background together. I don't need to draw one, since it won't win me any glory wasting that kind of effort. I've never gotten the hits that would necessitate any kind of overexpendature of time. I'll take a break to check out simplistic backgrounds... I should buy some more artbooks... I only have a couple, and most of them are full of paintings, not net-level stuff. Session time: 2 hours and 7 minutes TOTAL time - 24 hours and 43 minutes 4:00PM, December 8th, 2002. Finalizing the pic, I guess.... 5:03PM. It's done... I guess. I patterned the BG and text after the Felicia pic, because Torako's a catgirl (albeit an android) with a nice ass too... but the kanji is a little difficult to read... Session time: 1 hour and 3 minutes Final version's time: About 9 hours TOTAL time: 25 hours and 10 minutes