Comic Creators Free Talk

[blinkanjell01]

Haha, I actually go to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. You probably visited just as I was finishing up review boards.

[Kaxen]

I neglected to get a driver's license for the longest time and I love sleeping on the way to school while someone else does the driving and parking...I HATE parking... I still can't actually do this competently. Parking is hell at my college anyway and nearly nobody carpools no matter how much they care for the environment or happen to live a block away from each other...

I love the Hong Kong subway. heart I wish places I lived would use something equivalent to the Octopus Card. I love scanning the card at the subway even when it's inside my wallet inside my bag with a crapton of other random junk (makes it nearly impossible to lose unless you've lost your entire wallet). And it's been expanded to being usable at a lot of chain stores. So I can avoid my inability to count change (I don't know why this is so hard...) and the card doesn't have personal info on it so I don't need to flip the hell out if I lose it (never really have craptons of cash saved on it anyway).

...if my Chinese wasn't so bad and cost of living wasn't so damn expensive in HK (renting a store the size of a closet can somehow put you back tens of thousands, tons if it's in a strategically good spot), I'd probably move there.

Though public transportation in Los Angeles is horrible. The buses are never on time and one time I tried calling the hotline to scream "WHY IS IT AN HOUR LATE?!" and they didn't answer for twenty minutes so my cousin thought we should both call at the same time with our cell phones and they picked up the second cell phone call first. HOW DOES THAT WORK?!

...and public transportation in mainland China nearly got my sister trampled to death... Well, Guangzhou was worse than Shenzhen. The Guangzhou one also had terrible ideas on how to switch lines. The Hong Kong subway is set up so that all you need to do to switch lines is walk across the platform at certain stops. The Guanzhou one makes you walk all the way upstairs and then downstairs again. It's also a ridiculous zig-zagging path for some reason. We were all ready to kill my uncle who said it would be easy to do despite the fact we were carrying two suitcases and it was rush hour...

And my aunt who lives in Japan to teach English somehow got herself lost at the Tokyo subway. O_o Though her son seems to know it better.

...I'm pretty sure most of the impetus for private transportation is that public transport is less than perfect in a lot of places...

Though I'm told it's really hard to get a driver's license in Hong Kong also (though the place is pretty much crammed to the teeth with taxis, buses, and trucks). I only have like one relative in Hong Kong who actually drives.

...in California, I've come to the conclusion that it is stupidly easy to get a driver's license. The number of allowed mistakes has gone up in the last few years, they removed testing highway driving, and my tester said I had no common sense but let me get a license anyway...

and I also have a license despite the fact I can't actually park and I can't actually drive in the dark (never tried).

I never realized I never drove in the dark for a while... >_>



...and that's Kaxen on public transportation and why she shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel of a car... *long winded*

[Saraneth 6th Bell]

Oh, yeah, when you get to London, you're paying another ten bucks for the underground pass. And at Euston station in London, you have to pay 30p to use the loo. It's annoying, but it keeps them clean and druggie-free. >_>;; Public transport here is often very grubby. The buses around where I live rattle so hard it's ridiculous. Where I go to uni, the only trains in and out are these ridiculous old things with only two carriages, or sometimes one. Which is fine when it's empty, but my friend once went home at what was basically train travel high tide, on a single carriage train, and they didn't add another. Some people just had to wait for the next one. Last time I went to the station, the guy in front of me ended up not buying a ticket, because if he wanted to return after 8pm, the trains had stopped in the area and there was no way back.

Basically, s**t here is inconvenient and expensive as hell. You have to pay to park even at the mall. It's like $1.80 per hour in good-ish spots, and even some crap ones. The spots across the road are like $0.50. The free ones are always taken, generally by employess, really, really early. Only places you don't pay around here are at food shops, and if you go to the cinema, they pay you back for parking.

[Mr McGrumpypants]

Blink, you live in Boston? We should meet up at Anime Boston. It'll be fun. Unless you're crazy and try to kill me.

EDIT: I'm so glad Boston has good public transportation, then. Trains run until around midnight unless you're leaving town, in which case it's like 10 or 11PM. I only visit, too. I'd live there if I could.

[Mink_LaLa]

Huh, I've never had to take public transportation in my city. The traffic's usually not bad,either. Except during Mardi Gras, when the population ******** doubles. >x<

[Zee Coldwater]

I own no car and happily take the public transport here (Ireland). It's a tad unreliable, which can be annoying, but since I have access to the tram system, I can ignore the buses.

On the other hand, public transport is a b***h in winter. I am kind of starting to miss living in Germany, where my partner has a car. With heating.

[Kyousouka]

To get from Central Jersey to NYC Penn, it's about $11 one-way, takes 45 min (express) or 65min (local). To drive there would take two hours, and something like $15 to park.
The trains come every 25-35 minutes. It's not quite as flexible as private transport, but really... given the congestion on the roads, it's much more reliable time-wise than driving anywhere.
Edit: Oh and they're well-heated/cooled, and many of the stations have heated waiting areas.


In better news, I got two white Gelly Rolls today <3 And a couple of different NRB pencils. Still no t-square though, the ones at Pearl were either in inches only (I need metric) or had caps that were too thick. Ugh. So my mom pitied me and bought me a rolling parallel ruler. I doubt it'll do me much good, it's too light to be precise.
She says that when she goes to Russia this summer, she'll get me a nice heavy one, and maybe a drafting board (they're much cheaper there). I'm trying to convince her to get me some A4 paper too.

[Mr McGrumpypants]

Tell me about it, Zee. I have to walk 20 minutes into downtown to reach my college campus. It takes an hour to get to the career center.

[Bulbasauur]

There is no feeling like creating a smooth line with a G Pen

I want to do that for the rest of my life

[Kyousouka]

I'm not awesome or rich enough for pen and ink D: Brush and ink too. ...nevermind that in the long run it's probably cheaper.
Pigment pens for life~

[Saraneth 6th Bell]

Isn't pen and ink cheaper in the long run? A pot of ink lasts for a long time, and so do the pen nibs.


And s**t, so I'm writing another essay. I know I mentioned the first one to a few people around here... So that last one, it was like 2500 words and I wrote it in a day. This one...I know what I want to say, I mostly know what I'm talking about, since I guess it's kind of largely philosophical and trying to make points rather than state facts? but trying to present it in an orderly way, get it all out and not contradict myself or confuse the point I am trying to make (I'm not even sure I know what point I'm trying to make, exactly) is hard as hell. And it's due Monday, along with tons of other stuff. Guuuuh.

[Kyousouka]

*pokes Neth* You're too slow, I already edited my post.

Just write it as it comes to you, then go back and organize it? That's how I did that sort of thing.
I'm so glad I don't have to write essays anymore.

[Bulbasauur]

I got a refillable fountain pen and went through that pretty quickly, because of my obsessive doodle compulsion. I bought a 3 point nib set with some money I got for christmas and I love it. I'm able to create much more of a variation with my lines, plus I don't have to stop every 5 seconds to shake the pen. xD I'm still a beginner, so i feel like it was a pretty good transition from using a felt tip or ball point pen to dipping with nibs. It feels so awesome, the way the nib glides across the paper. I get way too into this... sweatdrop

[Saraneth 6th Bell]

...oh well? emo Although I don't know if I would consider brush inking cheaper, since good brushes can get expensive. I haven't done much of it, so I would not know. I don't like pens anyway because they tend to fade when the penciled lines underneath are erased, even if you're careful. I tend to use them just for work I will be colouring with marker, since ink tends to smear.


And yeah, I can't really rough things out like that because my process with essays involves figuring out wording and everything as I go. I don't really mind writing essays, though, since it lets me blab on about stuff. I hate essays that are meant to be all informative about a certain person or whatever, though. Puking back up a wikipedia article on some artist is not my idea of a good essay. But yeah, when I can pick my subject and produce some decent writing on it, me likey. And the lecturer liked my last essay a lot too, so yeah... I really want this one to be good as well. sweatdrop Have to carry on the standard I set by the first one and such.

[Kyousouka]

Bulba: I'm pretty sure even with the expensive pens and nibs, it's cheaper in the long run. They last a very long time. When a pigment pen/fineliner dies, you have to replace the whole thing. ...unless you use the Copic Multiliner SPs, but that's beside the point.

My pens don't need any shaking or coaxing o_o; I like the continuous flow of ink, I can focus on working without any distractions of refilling the ink. Or rather, they're much more infrequent since the pigment pens do run out eventually.
Also, I use a brush pen for some of my inking, which is really fun ;D Best of both worlds, I think. Continuous ink flow and easily variable line style.


Neth: I use blue lines, so I don't do any erasing xP The end result may look less presentable in person since the blue sketch remains visible underneath, but it saves me a lot of time since I don't have to erase, and the blue is easily removed in Photoshop.