The Olympic Torch Comes to Waterloo

(apologies for the craptacular quality!)

Merry Christmas!

The magi visiting baby Jesus (Matthew 2:1-12). Thought I'd throw in an extra "wiseman", since the Bible doesn't actually say there were 3 magi (we only assume there were three since there were three gifts). Anywho, this was a request from my mother, who wanted to see a different take on the magi from the east, and a non-white baby Jesus. And without the inaccurate manger setting (I know wikipedia is not always "an all reliable source", but the "wisemen" entry is quite interesting).

Merry Christmas everyone! :)

Why I Hate X-mas

(Readers take note, the author/doodle-er is in a very bad mood today. After all, what's a blog without a rant anyway?)

1) The Music!!! >_<

Now, x-mas music in moderation is perfectly fine. But seriously, how many versions of "Jingle Bells", "Silent Night", "Oh Holy Night", "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer" etc. etc. ETC. can one take???

2) The Ads O_o

I know the ads go overkill during the holiday season, but seriously? Jewellery commercials, other commercials that promote the silly idea that you must buy 10 million presents so everyone loves you, and that stupid Santa sex pill commercial on AMC, I hate you oh so very much.

3) Religion Politics

It's when a bunch of idiots (perdominently white, middle aged, and some sort of authority figure) get together and, in an attempt to "not offend anyone", think that Christmas is an offensive holiday to anyone who is of a different ethnicity or beliefs. Meanwhile, does anyone outside this demographic really care about this? No? Then what's the problem with diversity? Let's continue on celebrating Hanukkah, Solstice/Yule, Christmas, Kwanzaa, etc. as we normally do!

4) The Crawl Space.

The crawl space is where we store all of the x-mas decor. It is a very small, tight space full of boxes and insulation that is falling off the walls (healthy!). It is also home to some spiders with disgusting looking legs and big chunky abdomens. The entrance way is located in a closet, so of course you have to get stuff out before going in limbo to get even more stuff out. Up until last year, you could sort of sense the presence of a spider or two, but if you saw one it was already in a mummified state. No worries. Now...I don't know what happened. It's gross to go down there.

5) The Food

Actually, this is more of a love/hate relationship here. Food is one of the things I like very much about Christmas. It's after Christmas where my body hates me for stuffing tons of cookies, perogies, pies, mashed potatoes, etc. into my already bulgy stomach and I gain like, 200 pounds. Enter laxatives...

6) Family Politics

I do enjoy seeing the family during the holidays, but like all families, we have our differences. In ours, we have this rule regarding family conversations; no politics, no religion. Simple enough, but it can, unfortunately, be forgotten. This is also the plus side of the food part of the holidays - ultimate distraction. Yes.

7) The Shopping

I'm lucky if I can get all of that done on amazon, but that has not happened once yet. Someday it will....someday.... The shopping can be tedious for these two reasons, a) dealing with other insane shoppers, in the flesh or in a vehicle, and b) just the thought of going to many different stores makes me want to crawl away in my house and grab a cup of tea.

8) Fruitcake

I know. Fruitcake is a staple for Christmas mockery. I've added it on my list only because, not only do I dislike fruitcake, but every year, I'm pressured to eat some. Just incase my 23 year old taste buds have had a change of heart. One exception was when I did try a piece to humour my sibling, and it was not bad - only because there was no peel in that piece. I've asked for no peel in fruitcake before, but does it happen? No.

9) The Stress

(Totally a Dragon Ball Z/Broly ripoff, but oh so appropriate. See clip below...)

Eventually, the stress gets to you. Enough said.

10) The Traditionalists

They love Christmas so much that any little thing that goes "wrong" or "not the way it should be done", it is a big, epic, production. If it's something that's really untraditional or done very differently, then x-mas is ruined. Really, it's just a holiday...and it's almost over.

I'm sure by tonight, I'll be in a better mood towards Christmas... In the meantime, hope you're not freaking out like I am, and I also hope you have a Merry Christmas yourself!

House Pics, Before and After!

Before...

....After.

Before....

....After.

Before....

.....After.

Before! O_o .....

.....(freaky bathroom setting fit for a horror movie).....

....and thankfully, after!

Also, a memorable moment before the downstairs area was covered with tiling;

This was also one of the most disgusting parts of the renovation, since after the bathroom and the floors were torn up, all that you could smell was mold. And after the bathroom was finished, I have not yet seen any of those big, black, hairy, abnormally mutated looking spiders that usually like to party out in there. Hopefully it continues to stay that way.

Now all I have to get ready for is Christmas....AAAAA!!!!!

"Where's Becka?"

I'm alive! Really...it's been almost 2 months of chaos over here.

As of today, the renovations are DONE (woohooooo!!!!!!!!)! The house is slowly coming back to normal, as the mirrors and such are being put back on the walls. Next thing to tackle is the x-mas decor - the only things that are up are the Christmas tree (which was bought at a store), a cloth thingy, and a Nativity scene in the bathroom. Yeah...

Secondly, as well as Cadaverific!, I had been working on another comic book gig for a client, which was finally finished last week. Even though I can eye like, 10 million mistakes on the pages, I do have a very happy customer (yessss!). This project was a kids' comic called "Tomato Patch Kids".

I'm not gonna lie, working on T.P.K. and Cadaverific while the renovations went on, plus monitoring and keeping my dog out of the contractors' way, was madness. I think this was the first time EVER that I had to rely on coffee to get me through the week, and I don't even like coffee (enter Timmie's cafe mocha...mmmmm!).

Anywho, here are some more samples from the comic, which was 10 pages in length...

(Note from artist - Please disregard the fact that the lettering is very uneven!!! O_o Aie.)

(2nd note from artist - My drawing hand officially hates me because of those tomato plants. Really.)

(3rd note from artist - Kids are surprisingly difficult to draw.)

(Final note from the artist - Fail at the speed lines! Aaaugh.)

As of now, I'm not sure when T.P.K is going to go to print, and of course as soon as the details are finalized I will mention it. For now, I've got some Christmas illustrations to work on.

Pics of the end result of the house are coming tomorrow...