(I also keep a gallery in my cube at work. It brings me joy.)

So last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Jimmy showed special guest Johnny Depp some drawings that people had made of him in the game.

This morning, one of my bosses was watching Good Morning America and saw one of my drawings on a segment THEY did, which talked about Kimmel’s show the night before. Mine wasn’t one of the ones shown to Depp, but GMA is still pretty darned cool.

SO, here’s the segment on GMA, and also a slideshow of the featured drawings on GMA’s Yahoo page. Mine is the first in the slideshow!

What a weird world we live in. And what a strange, localized fame — word passed around my office, and I was given many hearty congratulations.

(Also, if you play Draw Something, I believe you can add me by username [redacted]. I’ll play anyone, anytime!)

Good gravy, I have like 20 new games suddenly! I’ll be rolling in coins in no time! I don’t know if I can take any more right now, but I’ll put my name back up if/when this batch loses interest.

One problem is, fishing line isn’t actually all that cheap. Because it’s hard to find it in short lengths. Sure, you could pay a few bucks for a 500-yard spool … but you’ll never use that much line (unless you actually go fishing), and more importantly, you’d have to get four reels, because the strings are all different sizes. So two options seemed feasible: grotesquely cheap fishing line, or better quality fishing line bought by the yard.

My first stop was the Bass Pro Shop, because they’re practically right next door. Unfortunately, despite being huge and intimidating, they didn’t sell any line by the yard, and their cheapest stuff ($5 for a spool) didn’t come in the right sizes. I moved on to Sports Authority, where I found the cheapest of the cheap stuff ($2.50 for that 500-yard spool) in the right sizes. Still, that meant putting down ten bucks for line that didn’t end up sounding all that great. On the plus side, I have fishing line for years now. Anyone want to string some beads?

I used the super-cheap stuff to string my uke (as seen in the previous photodump post, and wasn’t thrilled with the sound, but it was tolerable.

THEN, I happened upon a Dick’s Sporting Goods. Which I’d forgotten about completely, and only noticed because it’s next to the giant new liquor store near our house. So after buying my booze (and sampling a really nice Irish whiskey), I sauntered over to Dick’s.

The fishing stuff is in the same section as the guns. I was especially taken by the little pink one on the top shelf. It’s the kind of weapon Hello Kitty would use.

Not only did they have spools of better-quality fishing line, they also sold it by the yard. For cheap! I totally perplexed the guy behind the counter when I asked for a mere 5 yards in each size, but he was game to go to the back room where they keep the gigantic spools and cut me some.

The four sizes I got are: 30-pound, 40-pound, 50-pound, and 60-pound test. All those mean is that they’re tested to support that heavy of a load without breaking. I did some research and checked the pound-test to the standard measurement of uke strings, which is inches in diameter. And really, having put these strings on and tweaked the tuning a bit, you could probably get away with only two or three weights of line.

Anyhoo, the nice guy at the Dick’s gave me five yards each of 30, 40, 50, and 60, and told me to not even bother stopping by the registers, since it was such a small amount. And truly, going by their price charts, my twenty yards of line would have cost roughly 50¢.

Let’s also take a moment and discuss the material. There appear to be three basic kinds of fishing line. One is more of a braided string, so that’s useless for our purposes. The others are monofilament and fluorocarbon. Monofilament is cheaper, and that’s what I got (although it appears to be a decent quality monofilament). Fluorocarbon is the really good stuff, and will run you $20 or more for a small spool of the really high-quality stuff. So if you can find a place that will sell you fluorocarbon by the yard, jump on it.

Onward! I took off the old strings from my little uke and laid out the various sizes of line.

And yes, that is a cat’s tail in the upper corner.

We had to leave that shelf empty for the cats, so they could saunter between my desk and Scott’s. They love hanging out there, because they can get petted by both of us at the same time.

SO. I used the smallest line for the highest note, and so on down the line. But I started stringing with the second-smallest line (the 40-pound test) because that’s the string at the top of the ukulele. The bottom-most string is the highest note (A), while this topmost string is the G just below that A.

Here you can tell that it’s a cheap ukulele — you put knots in the strings and slot them into holes.

For the sake of comparison, a higher-quality ukulele doesn’t have those knot-holes; you have to feed the strings all the way through and wrap them back over themselves. Here’s my nicest uke, strung with my nicest strings, so you can see the difference.

So, you put the knot in the hole, pull the string over the bridge, lay it in the little groove up on the nut, and then you have to wind the string around the tuning peg. Again, there’s a difference between cheap and not-cheap ukes. On this cheap one, the hole in the tuning peg where you secure your string is in the middle.

While on my nicer ukulele, the hole is nearer to the top.

At any rate, with either one, you want to wrap the string around the peg a few times, then feed it through the hole. With the thinner strings, I then fed it through the hole a second time, for security. But as you can see two photos up, I didn’t wind the string starting at the very base of the peg; I left about a string’s width at the bottom. That’s so when you tighten the string, there’s still a place for that string to go. I did the same thing with the nicer uke, and as you can see, when it’s fully tuned up the string fills the peg all the way down to the bottom.

I finished with the rest of the strings, which went pretty quick. For the record, G=40-lb, C=60-lb, E=50-lb, and A=30-lb. You could probably do the G and A both with either the 40-lb or the 30-lb; one would just feel a little tighter or looser than the other. But I like the feel of the strings using all four sizes.

Now comes the tedious part — the constant stretching and re-tuning as the strings settle in. I’m tuning everything a little sharp, and pulling gently sideways on the strings to stretch them out.

Also, if I had to do this with a pitch pipe, I’d probably go nuts. Thank goodness for my little tuner. As you can see, I tuned a little bit sharp — by the end of a song, the string ended up on the flat side anyway. But since I have a penchant for playing dour and depressing songs on the uke, it’s kind of hilarious as it slowly gets flatter and more sour during a song. “Famous Blue Raincoat” has probably never sounded quite as chipper, yet quite as bleak.

I was at the IKEA and saw that they had some cool fabrics for cheap, so I figured I’d throw down a little purse.

The plain yellow and blue were on sale for something crazy like $2.99 per yard. The colorful pattern was $6.99 per yard, which seems about average for the IKEA home decor fabrics. I ended up using a quarter-yard of pattern, a quarter-yard of yellow, and maybe an eighth of a yard of blue. So the total cost of fabrics used was under five bucks.

First, figure out what size you want your bag. I opted for a smaller purse size, but you could use the same methods to make a big ol’ tote bag. Note that these aren’t perfect squares — they get narrower toward the top. That’s because when you pinch the bottom corners (where those cutouts are), it’ll make the bottom less wide. By narrowing as you go up, it makes the bag less top-gappy. I cut these pieces (floral for the outside, yellow for the lining) with the fold of the fabric along the bottom. Makes one less seam to sew, and the bottom will be sturdier as one piece without a seam.

I opted to use the yellow for the lining because it’s bright. Ever have a purse with a black lining? Makes it hard to see things and find things. Although you could use a darker color if that’s how you roll. I’m not here to judge.

Next, I cut a long strip, 5 inches wide, for the strap. I also cut a couple of rectangles for inside pockets. You can do pockets, or not — depends on if you like pockets. I made sure that both pockets are the right size for my cell phone.

I took the strap piece, folded it in half, and pressed. Then I folded the ends inward again and pressed. Stitch along the side, and you have a finished strap. I also stitched along the folded side, so I had a line of stitching down each side. I just like the look. For the pockets, I folded in about a half-inch on every side, and pressed.

Stitch the top fold of the pocket down, then pin the pocket to the inside of your lining. Then stitch along the other three sides. Easy peasy. One of my pockets didn’t need its top edge stitched, because I cut it along the finished edge of the fabric. I wish I’d done that with both — it was a happy accident.

Pin the sides of the bag together, right sides together. Stitch the sides. Do the same with the lining, right sides together.

Now, the corners. Grab the inside points of the cutouts and pull — it’ll flatten out your corners in a kind of fish-mouth-looking way. Then, as you can see on the floral piece, stitch across the fish mouth to make a nice squared corner.

Time to put everything together, which means time to figure out how long you want your strap. I made mine of a length that I could sling it over my shoulder, or I could wear it cross-body. I just binder-clipped the strap in place and checked it out in a mirror until I liked the length.

Stuff the lining (right sides OUT) inside the body (right sides IN, so the right sides of the lining and body are touching). Also, stuff the strap inside, between the two layers. Pin everything securely and stitch around the top, leaving two or three inches open. I like to put two pins really close to each other on either side of the hole, as a reminder to not zone out and end up sewing the whole thing. Saves embarrassment, and time spent with the little seam-ripper.

Gently pulling everything through that two or three inch gap, flip the whole thing right-side-out. You can see the hole I left where the outside and the lining are connected. All this while, you’ll be wondering, Did I get the correct sides together? Is this going to work? This is the weirdest thing ever. Then you pull everything through that little hole, and it’s like magic.

Stuff the lining down inside the bag, make sure your seam is nice and neat, then stitch around the top. This both closes up the hole you used to flip it around, and also makes everything neat and tidy.

And there you go! A handy-dandy purse to carry all of your ladythings. Or your manthings, if that’s how you roll. You could also install a snap at the top, if that makes you feel more secure. And what would be better than using some of the scraps of fabric to create a matching sleeve for your tablet or phone?

On a final note, please don’t ever try to lay out anything crafty without a spotter to make sure everything’s soft, cozy, and thoroughly covered with hair.

I’ve already created a couple, and coerced Scott to fill out his own template so I could process it.

They make it pretty darned easy — download the template, fill out the letters with your favorite pen (I have a clicky Sharpie I’m quite fond of [and for the record, I originally wrote "quite font of"]), scan and upload, and enter the coupon code. Which is: CPN4NHD2012.

Now get on it, people! I want to see your scrawls!

(I’ll most likely update my fonts page with everything I create, after this next couple of days.)

Oh, and I’m still using my sharpest font (the one used in Basic Instructions) on my phone. Along with a new icon set I drew. Which is a craft I see that I’ve forgotten to post about. SOON!

That software was awesome.

Then, this last Monday, the news came out that with Cyanogen (the new software we’d put on our phones), our phones couldn’t dial 911.

It’s not a problem with all phones. It’s not even a problem with some phones. It’s a problem specifically with this one model of phone, the Samsung Vibrant, which just happens to be the one model of phone that Scott and I both have. But this is the kind of freaky fluke thing that happens to us all the time. We’ve had these phones for a year and a half. We’ve thought about changing the software off and on for over a year. We finally do it, and the very next day, the software developer says sorry, no longer supporting your phone, because Samsung has it wired in some totally wack way that we can’t work around.

GREAT.

So I made it through the week without needing to call 911, thank goodness. This weekend I researched putting the original Samsung software back on the phone, which kills my soul a little bit, because they loaded it up with dozens of crappy programs that I don’t want, don’t use, and can’t delete. That’s right, they filled it up with tons of bloat and don’t give you the ability to get rid of it. At least Windows lets you delete the AOL setup software if you don’t want it, am I right?

Fortunately, you can re-install the original Samsung software and then root the phone, which gives you deep-down access to everything. Of course, rooting the phone voids the warranty, but I’d already voided the warranty by installing the Cyanogen software, so what the heck.

So it’s back to stock Samsung Froyo, but rooted. And with root access, I can delete programs that Samsung wants me to keep. Goodbye Layar, and Gogo, and MobiTV, and The Sims 3, and the movie Avatar. Don’t want any of you, don’t need any of you.

I also added in a new launcher, since the stock TouchWiz launcher is also a stinker. I’d used Launcher Pro before, but saw that Go Launcher EX has a ton of themes to choose from.

And the developer offers a theme-making program.

How could I not?

Here’s my first attempt at my own theme, to get comfortable with the program. I based some of the icons off of another theme that I mostly liked, but wasn’t 100% in love with.

I also made a new battery widget. Although this is not my weather widget; I found this one that was already in the Beautiful Widgets download section, and liked it a lot. (Please don’t hate on our weather; we tolerate four ghastly months in the summer and this is our reward.)

Here’s inside the app drawer:

Now that I’m familiar with the theme-building program, I’ll have to think about what icon theme to build. I have two three-day weekends coming up, and Scott’s working all of those days, so I’ll have some time on my hands. Maybe a full Basic Instructions theme, although I can’t quite see yet what the icons would be.

I discovered the other day, after a year and a half of using this phone, that I could change the font. Yes, it took that long for me to find a little menu. I immediately changed it to something called “choco cooky” or something, which was cute enough, but if you know me at all, you know that I want my own darned font on there.

So I researched, and found out how to take a .ttf font file and compile it into an Android .apk file that the phone would recognize.

THEN, I thought to myself, if I can download widget skins for the Beautiful Widgets app (which I just got for 10¢, thanks to the 10 days of 10¢ apps sale going on right now), why can’t I make my own widget skins?

So I did.

And this is the horror that I created:

Because really, WHY NOT?

A few days of partly Scottish with a chance of rain, and then a day of just partly Scott. And the battery was creeping down toward half Scott.

Even creepier, the 50% level of the battery:

That’s right, it’s Scott as the Dread Pirate Roberts. I can only hope that soon we’ll be living like kings in Patagonia.

Well, all this research took me to some fascinating sites like the XDA Developers forum and Android Central and a host of others that I read but didn’t bookmark. And everywhere I looked, there were mentions of rooting phones.

For those who don’t know, rooting the phone means clearing off the software that came pre-installed by the cell carrier, and installing a fresh and clean version of Android. It makes the phone way faster and less bloated, and it also voids your warranty immediately.

I’ve always been scared of rooting the phone, because what if something happens? And I screw it up? Then my warranty is voided, and I’m up a creek without a paddle. But I don’t have much time left on this contract, the phone is two generations old, it’s running Android from two releases ago, the carrier isn’t updating anytime soon, and it came pre-loaded with 30 or 40 applications that I don’t use but can’t delete.

So I rooted! It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, but it wasn’t that hard either. And we only had a couple of minor heart attacks throughout the process. (Scott decided to root his this morning too, and we each had different weird things happen.) But both phones are now working great, and they’re SO FAST.

I also made a new background, and a new battery widget skin, and a new weather widget skin. Because those Scott Meyer heads are creepy.

I also adjusted the old font that Scott uses for the Basic Instructions dialog — bumped it up to 130% in size, because in its old format it was displaying a little too small on the phone. I combined it with the special characters from one of my other handwriting fonts, because sometimes it’s nice to have accent marks and stuff.

SO! I’m all about sharing the arts & crafts. Here’s various things, if you want them:

MissyFonts.zip – the original Basic Instructions font from 2006 (“BoldMissyHand” in regular and bold), the 2010 handwriting font (“MissyMeyerNew”) and the up-sized combo of the two I’m using on my phone now (“MissyCombo”).

Basic Battery Instructions – the Scott Meyer head you can use for a Beautiful Widgets battery meter.

Basic Weather Instructions – ditto, but for the weather widget.

Battery Doodles – Black – the doodled battery meter I’m using now, also for Beautiful Widgets.

Weather Doodles – Black – ditto, but for the weather widget.

If you’re using Beautiful Widgets, all you need to do is extract the .zip file, and then move that onto your phone. Your Beautiful Widgets folder will probably be on the phone memory drive, under data>beautifulwidgets. Plop each folder into the corresponding sub-folder on your phone (the battery widgets into the “bskins” folder, the weather ones into “wskins”.)

Since I ended up with a 30-day version of a font-making program, I guess I should get cracking on a 2011 font. Before it becomes 2012.

I figured I’d make a couple more, and take snappies of the process.

This is a pretty easy project for a beginner, and a lot of fun. Onward!

First off, you’ll need to get your fabrics. This is a selection of stuff from my miscellaneous box. What you’ll need is:

- Cotton for the lining and the outside (I like quilting-weight cotton)
- Insulated batting / wadding / filler (whatever you call it in your ‘hood)
- Double-fold quilt binding (also called “bias tape” — I got the extra-wide 7/8″ size)
- Thread, naturally

I like quilting-weight cotton because it feels good, and also because it comes in a thousand and one cool patterns. Oh, and it’s relatively cheap. You can get a “fat quarter” (a quarter-yard of fabric cut in such a way that instead of a long, thin strip, it’s an 18″ x 21″ rectangle) for 99¢ most places. You might also check the remnant bin (one of my favorite stops at the fabric store) for anything that tickles your fancy. The plain blue fabric I have was a remnant, and thus super-cheap.

You can get fat quarters singly, or wrapped together with a few other patterns that go with each other. I have both single quarters and five-packs in my collection of miscellaneous stuff. Take a peek when you’re at the fabric store — the quilting section is surprisingly enormous.

The insulated batting will be over with other battings and fillings and waddings and stuffings. At Jo-Ann Fabrics, it runs $7.99 per yard; at the Wal-Mart, it was something like $6.50. Either way, you can get eight oven mitts out of a yard. Maybe nine or ten if you cut really well. I went ahead and got a whole yard last time, so I still had more than enough left over.

All right, on to making a pattern!

Take an oven mitt and put it on a regular sheet of paper. Trace around, giving yourself an extra half or three-quarters of an inch around the outside. I wanted to make these new mitts a little wider at the fingertips, so I accounted for that. And it’s important to always have a cat overseeing this kind of thing, and helping hold down the paper for you.

Fold your fabric in half, either right-sides together or wrong-sides together, then cut out two of each piece. This green will be the lining of a mitt. You’ll need two pieces of lining, two pieces of insulated batting, and two pieces of outside.

And also, if you’re nervous about how thin the batting is, you can cut an extra piece for the middle. You can either use another piece of insulated batting, or just something heavier like fleece.

Here’s the thing — this is going to be a LOT of layers to sew. So this extra layer, you can cut it a little smaller. So it’ll sit inside the mitt, but you don’t have to sew through the edges. Just make another copy of your pattern, and cut off a half-inch or so around the outside.

So now you’ll have four layers for the front of the mitt, and four layers for the back. Here’s how they’ll go together:

The lining, upside-down. Then the extra fleece. Then the insulated batting (toward the outside of the mitt, for maximum heat-protection) and then the outside cotton.

Now, the decision: to quilt, or not to quilt?

Your oven mitts at home might be either way. They might not be quilted at all, or they might be quilted with lines, or they might be quilted criss-cross. I advise quilting, because it takes four layers and turns them into one easier-to-handle layer.

If you opt to quilt your pieces, just take your stack of four layers, pin them together, then do single lines of stitches across one way, then across the other way. But be sure to pin them. PIN THEM. If you don’t, some of your under-layers could flop around, and you could do something foolish, like:

That.

Then you have to pick the stitches out, which is a pain, then PIN IT and re-sew.

You really don’t want to go through that.

Once things are quilted, then put the quilt binding on. Make sure it’s double fold. This way you get a nice, clean finished bottom with as little effort as possible.

Sew the binding along the bottom of each half. Did you pin it? I sure hope so.

Now all that’s left is sewing the front to the back! Put the wrong sides together, pinning them, of course. I advise lining the sides up then starting the pinning at the thumb, because the thumb area is the most complex part of the project. Then sew all around the outside.

As you can see, I did a fairly terrible job of this. My sewing machine is small and cheap, and there are a LOT of layers to sew through. Instead of the machine feeding the material along, I pretty much had to pull it through. And the corners were problematic. As you can see.

I did a zig-zag stitch to hopefully make them a little tougher. And I went over the ends of the seams back and forth.

As I write this up, it occurs to me that I could have cut the insulated batting to the same size as the fleece. That way when doing my outside seams, I would only be going through four layers of cotton, not four layers of cotton and two layers of heavy batting. Live and learn, eh? Certainly it’ll be something to try next time.

OH, and if you want a loop to hang it by, take a little piece of ribbon (which I think all crafty girls have in a drawer somewhere) and put it between the front and the back before you stitch them together. The loop of the ribbon should stick into the entry-hole and stick out the bottom. (That sounds dirty.)

Flip right-side-out (yes, it’s tough — a lot of layers) and there you have it, an oven mitt!

With a fun, colorful surprise inside!

(Also handy for fisticuffs.)

1. The kind that hooks onto the sound hole, and puts the weight in a sort of noose around your neck;

2. The kind that’s just like a smaller version of a guitar strap, and requires you to drill a hole and install a strap button on the bottom of the uke;

3. And the kind that only holds the uke in one spot, leashing it to your body but still requiring you to clutch it all the time.

I didn’t want to drill holes in any of my ukes, so I asked at my local music store (the delightful Orlando location of George’s Music, where they have more ukes than all of our area Guitar Centers combined) if there was such a thing as a stick-on button for a ukulele strap. The guy told me he’d never heard of anything like that, but if I could invent it, it’d be an awesome thing.

So off I went to the store!

I got a set of the Command mini-hooks I’d seen advertised on TV. They have a sticky pad with a tab that’s supposed to make them quick and easy to remove, and they won’t damage your walls. Sounds good! There were several sizes to choose from — I went with the size that holds up to a half-pound; they seemed to be the right cross between big enough to hold the weight of the uke, but small enough to be relatively unobtrusive. For reference, the hooks I got are model #17006, and they cost around three bucks.

Then I went to my local craft megastore (Michael’s is my nearest. Wish there were a Jo-Ann closer, though.) and bought some cheap ribbon. This was 3/8″ polyester ribbon from the 50¢ bin. I’d advise that you get yourself the softest ribbon you can find; this is going to be resting against your neck, after all. I’m sure you can tell that I got the high-quality stuff from the classy packaging.

I broke one hook off the sprue, and got one of the sticky pads. You stick the red side to the hook, and the black side to the wall/surface/ukulele. I don’t know what horrible things would happen if you stuck the black side to the hook and the red side to the uke. I didn’t want to chance anything, so I obeyed the directions on the package.

Then, the challenging question: which way to face the hook? I was worried that the bottom of the uke would be just curved enough that the pad wouldn’t stick. But I also figured that a hook facing downward would be the best angle for holding the uke, so I went ahead and tried it. On this particular concert-sized uke, there was no problem getting the pad to stick. The bottom of the ukulele was just flat enough. In checking out my soprano-sized uke, the bottom center is also just flat enough to take one of these hooks.

I cut a way-too-long strip of ribbon, then looped it around the headstock, just above the nut and under the strings. Then I tossed it around my body, figured out the right length for my personal tastes, and tied a single loop knot at that length.

Now I have a strap of just the right length, and can easily put that loop on the hook. I wiggled and jiggled everything around, and it holds really well. Nice and secure. So now I can stand and make jazz hands with my uke at the ready!

That’s right: VISIBLE UNDIES. Scourge of the warm-weather world. So I figured I’d keep one white pair (to only be worn with flesh-toned underthings, I swear) and dye the other. Because they were so cheap to buy, and they fit so well.

I got Rit dye from the grocery store. I haven’t used this stuff in almost 20 years. I think the last time was when I was a summer camp counselor, and we did tie-dyed t-shirts. Although apparently Rit isn’t the best option for cotton, but it’s what was available. And cheap. Did I mention that cheap was a big part of this project? Anyhoo, they print the instructions in tiny grey type on the inside of the box. If that’s too small and hard to read, they do have the instructions up on their Web site as well (thank goodness).

First I set up my dying vessel. You can use plastic, glass, metal, whatever. But they warn you that it’ll probably be permanently stained afterward. I didn’t want any of my pots and pans to get stained, so I put a garbage bag inside a storage box. It was perfect! The bag got totally stained in the end, but the box was dry and untouched. Before I threw in the dye, I soaked the shorts thoroughly in plain warm water. This apparently helps the dye soak in more evenly.

I heated some water to 140°F on the stove, poured it in my bag, mixed in the entire dye packet (as well as about a half-cup of salt, which Rit says will help the color stay better), and plunged in the shorts. You’re supposed to soak your fabric for a half-hour, agitating the entire time. Honestly, I don’t have that much patience. So I just squooshed everything around thoroughly every five minutes or so. And did I mention the need for gloves? I have a huge box full, initially purchased for hair coloring but handy for 1,001 household uses. The gloves immediately turned purple, and I’m just glad it wasn’t my hands.

After a salty black soak, it was time to rinse. And I’ll tell you what, these things took FOREVER to rinse. I thought it was boring to wait for the water to run clear when rinsing out hair color. This took five times as long, and I had to sqoosh and smoosh the shorts the entire time. Bottom line: I just rinsed Rit dye out of some shorts, and BOY are my arms tired.

After wringing out as much water as I could, I sent them through the dryer. And now, here they are. They’re not exactly black — more of a dark grey. Which I don’t mind. And the threads, zipper fabric, and part of the lining of the waistband didn’t take much of the color at all, which I think is kind of cool.

Every other pair of shorts I got this season was plaid (which I guess was big this year), so now it’s nice to have two solids to choose from. For cheap! Plus I got to have fun in a sciency, messy way, so it’s a win-win.

First off, there’s the idea. I try not to say the following words to Scott often: “You should do a strip about how to ______!” Believe me, he hears that all the time from everyone. But our conversations sometimes lead to an idea popping out. If he doesn’t already make a note of it on his own (and most of the time he does), I might say something like, “Huh, there might be something in that.” For this strip, we were indeed coming up with drinking game rules at the grocery store, and I thought not only that there was potential, but that I could help Scott with his workload by doing a guest strip.

The idea percolated for a while, until one day when I was trying to take a nap. Which wasn’t working, because of the cat giving himself a bath while pressed against my leg, and the other cat giving herself a bath while pressed against my head. But while I was lying there, I came up with my four punchlines.

I got up, wrote them down, and figured out rough narration for those four panels. Scott doesn’t always write the same way — sometimes he comes up with the “how to” concept first, sometimes he comes up with a couple of punchlines and figures out what kind of “how to” framework they’ll fit in. And some rare times, an almost-complete strip will pop out from his head like some kind of comedic Athena.

I worried about a strip about drinking games, and considered some sort of “please drink responsibly” fine print at the bottom. Finally, I decided to start the narration in the very first panel with “alcoholic or not,” and I went with coffee cups and soft drinks for two of the art panels. Hopefully that will satisfy everyone but the most sticklerific out there.

With the writing done, it was time for the art. The software involved is Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. I’m sure you could use other drawing programs, but these are the ones that are (a) in my house, and (b) I know how to use. As for the hardware, we both swear by Wacom tablets:

I use the small Wacom Bamboo tablet. Scott has another model. I’ve used a tablet instead of a mouse for 10 years or so, and love it. I used to have a larger off-brand tablet, but when that one conked out, I got a smaller but higher quality model. Diet Coke is also an essential piece of hardware. Or would that be wetware? Anyhoo.

Photography comes next. In my first guest strip I called Scott’s drawing process “photocartooning.” Its more technical term is “rotoscoping,” and it mainly consists of drawing over the top of a photograph. Shots are taken in the appropriate poses and costumes (Yes, costumes — what would Scott be without a black t-shirt and chinos? Or Mullet Boss without his suit jacket and unbuttoned shirt?) and put on the computer.

Tracing over the pictures isn’t as easy as you’d think. I think the hardest part, and the part that Scott really rocks at, is figuring out what parts to trace, and what to leave behind. You can’t trace every single line on someone’s face, for example — it’d look like a line-filled, wrinkly mess. Likewise, you don’t want to capture every wrinkle of clothing, and you don’t want to define every single tooth. It just looks creepy. Plus, these drawings are going to shrink down to a tiny size, so you’d lose a lot of the fine details anyway. Pick the bold stuff and ignore the rest.

Here’s a sample of one of my tracings, and you can see some of the subtle changes and things left out. I made sure to remove my double-chin, which makes an appearance every single time I make a hammy face. What can I say, I’m blessed with chins. I also didn’t draw any of the lines around my chin or mouth; those details would be lost upon shrinkage. I did have fun with my hair, however. (I’m also fascinated by how the curve of my face follows the curve of my guitar on the wall. Also, please enjoy our messy desk and bookshelves. And I moved my wedding ring to the proper finger, since it’s too big and I’m too lazy to have it resized.)

The tracing is done in Photoshop, saved as a JPG file, and then placed in Illustrator. Why, you may ask? Well, the Photoshop paintbrush is easier to draw with (Illustrator’s pen and brush can both be a little weird) but Illustrator is needed to turn the drawing into a vector format. A process called Live Trace is run on the JPG, and Illustrator finds all of the lines and turns them into points on curves. That way, you can resize the art as small or large as you want, and as long as the software knows how the points and curves relate to each other, it’ll always look the same. Illustrator’s fill-in paint bucket is really nice, as well.

Here’s our image, first in the Photoshop drawing, then in the colored Illustrator vector drawing. You can see some subtle differences in the smoothness of the lines. The Live Trace process is very forgiving for shaky hands and small errors — for the most part, it smooths them out in a stylish way.

Once all the drawings are traced and colored, it’s time to assemble the strip. I had to draw eight figures and some furniture all from scratch for my strip, which made my poor hand tired. Scott has a huge stockpile of drawings of his characters, and almost always has a drawing he can use again for most common poses (thus the title of book 2: Made with 90% Recycled Art). I did not, however, build my own framework. I used Scott’s, because I wasn’t about to measure everything and start from scratch when he had a perfectly usable template ready for the borrowing.

Although the template appears simple, it’s a 15-layer Illustrator document. Each panel’s art gets its own layer, as well as layers for the outer frame, the shaded background, narration, dialog, word balloons, and more.

The first part of assembly is a mad festival of copying, pasting, resizing, typing, and nudging things around until they fit right. A little scootch here and there really makes a difference.

Here you can see my strip before I’ve clipped the unused parts of the artwork away, and before I’ve put balloons around the words. It took a lot of nudging and wiggling to get everything to fit. I worry that I might be even wordier than Scott, which is saying something. You can see that I didn’t draw Scott’s feet, because I didn’t think I’d use them. I actually wish I’d been more complete with a couple of the drawings, because I had to really finesse them to get them to fit right. Like Scott’s shopping cart (and he is, indeed, the one who pushes the cart), which is as high as it can go without showing that the side comes to an abrupt end.

The superfluous art is hidden away with a clipping mask, and word balloons are placed around the text. For voices coming from out-of-frame, I wanted a different look than just the rounded rectangles. Scott’s template had a soft, rounded thought-balloon brush, but nothing as jagged as I wanted. So I had to make a pattern, then make a brush out of it. You can see my original jagged line on the side, and how it repeats its way around the dialog. The directional tail of the balloon is made with a > shape, made with the pen tool and lined up with the jagged balloon edges. The curved tails from the regular dialog are also made with the pen, then the pen shape and the rounded rectangle balloon are merged into one shape. (I also had to learn how to adjust the corners of my rounded rectangles. I learned a ton about Illustrator in general.)

A few more nudges and adjustments, and the strip was ready to send to Scott. I sent it to him as an Illustrator file, and he rendered it as a 600×600 GIF for the Basic Instructions site. For his strips, there are a couple of additonal steps — there’s a larger vector-based copy that gets sent to newspapers, so it’ll print clearly at any size. He also has to keep everything scheduled tightly, due to newspapers and the Cracked.com site running strips certain lengths of time before they show up on the BI site.

So there it is, how a Basic Instructions gets made!