NateCreates.com

It’s been 30 days now since I first started a daily political cartoon blog at PixelMarx.com where I draw and post and new cartoon every day, under the name, Irishspacemonk.

And today I’m taking a break and celebrating that milestone.

The idea for celebrating a Blog Milestone came from David Airey. Check out his blog if you’re just getting started. His site has lots of great content.

I thought I’d share a few things I’ve learned in doing this little project called, PixelMarx.
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Only 361 Days to Go

On Monday when I started my political cartoons on PixelMarx.com, I felt pretty comfortable with what I’d done. However there’s something strange about posting a cartoon everyday - and that is you learn and improve. Now 4 days later (example above) , I’m tempted to delete my first attempt. It’s that bad.

This brings to question the impulse of a student to want to rush into the marketplace with their work. I’m as guilty as anyone in this area. What do other’s think? How do you know you’re there, or is it better to kick off, splash, and try to swim.

Lessons Learned

If you’re considering political cartooning yourself, I have a few keys I’ve learned in these 4 days (and I’m sure I’ll learn more over the next 361):

• Pay attention to the concept. This is where it all resides. My first attempt I just started drawing.

• Tell the whole story in one scene. This one’s tough, especially with political cartooning, as it usually requires the audience to bring an understanding of current events.
• Always try to do better. Listen to criticism even when it hurts.

I’ve been taking a Graphic Novel course this summer, and while I’ve strugged to remain motivated, a recent assignment unleashed a new interest for me - political cartooning.

If your interested in checking out my new blog, PixelMarx.com, I will be posting a new political cartoon each day. These cartoons are drawn entirely in Photoshop so I’m able to create quickly on the fly, they relate to current political events, and are free to use, so long as they are not resold, or used to make derivative works. Blah. Blah. Blah.

If you’re intrested in the assignment I recently completed (drawing another student’s short graphic novel) you can read the Orange Peel Dreams [PDF version].. (The story is by Devon Delaney, with artwork by Nate.

Let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions or ideas that might make a great political cartoon.

Blogcatalog has let me down.

My little network of friends and neighborhoods disappeared.

My avatar evaporated (ok that’s probably not a bad thing - especially since I’m not really smiling right now).

Information that I’d spent the last week building, adding to and watching grow - just swept away.

Ok, if you’re a Blogcatalog user you’re probably experiencing the exact same let down. If you’re not a Blogcatalog user, you still likely use Gmail, Google Apps, MySpace, Linkedin, or one of the many other virtual apps for working, connecting and socializing.

So this event made me think - how do I backup my information that’s hosted on these free spaces. What happens when your entire network disappears. (For some, this is a significant chunk of their life). Thank-goodness for the real word because you could find yourself literally friendless in seconds on the web.

It seems there should be a way to backup your data on these sites, some XML file that gives you a bit of insurance that you’re not going to be going back to the same sites and authors you happened across before and thinking…haven’t we met before??

P.S. I guess one positive - it gives you an opportunity to reinvent yourself.

Wow!

I just spent the last three hours searching for the Windows Holy Grail - how to quickly create a new folder with a keyboard shortcut. I understand Mac users have never had this issue. They’ve been given Shift-Command-N (or Command-N). For Windows users the best solution I could find was the suggestion to memorize Alt, F, Enter, Enter. As anyone who makes their livelihood behind an LCD panel knows, keyboard shortcuts are the key to efficiency and memorizing long keyboard combinations to navigate menus is not a shortcut.

So after searching long and hard, I decided to test something. I tried Adobe CS3 Bridge as my default file manager.

Guess what. In Bridge, it’s as simple as Control-Shift-N. Voila, I have a new folder. I name it. I move on.

I hope by sharing this tip other designers out there using PCs (I know we’re a small crowd), I save you 3 hours of your time.

P.S. This post is the sort of post I’d like to run on my new blog, MonkeyintheMachine.com. While the blog is in it’s infancy, I am open to guest writers if your submission pertains to the topic of how to survive as a cog. Excuse the lack of design so far. I’ll be working on something good this summer.