Today is the 11th annual Transgender Day of Rememberence. This year, 163 transgender individuals were tortured, shot, and killed simply for being who they are. 

Normally this time of year I take the site down for several days, replacing it with a honorary comic and a somber list of names. This year, as you might have noticed, all of this has been curiously absent.

I have little to offer in the way of an excuse, and yet the circumstances of my lapse are in their own ways significant. I am recovering from surgery -- a goal I set myself to at a very young age when I barely grasped the challenges that lay before me. This year I can say, "I made it. Somehow I survived."

And far too many did not.

I am not one for marches. Nor am I one for rallies or even argument. Even my typical  annual contribution lies absent this year. The question remains, What can I do? How can I help? How can I help to put a stop to all of this? Is there anything such a inwardly and private person such as myself can do?

I can start with this; quietly, uncertainly, and fearfully. I can refuse to line the background and stand, knowing that this puts me in the crosshairs of an unknown gun. 

I can start with this.

For the past three years and the last year particularly, the activity at deninet and my creative output has dwindled. I've whined about it, justified it, unjustified it, and reasoned with it to no avail.

So what in the hell is going on?

Ever since I was a little kid, I understood I had a rather uncommon medical problem. Treatment was available, but at the time impossible. My Mother did not trust doctors and I went untreated for most of my life. Coverage was possible, but difficult. Even so, at the age of nine I set my mind toward what I hoped to be a better life through modern medicine.

In the last three years I've been under enormous personal and professional pressure. While building a career in the IT field, I saved whatever money I could in order fulfill my ambition. I began exercising regularly, then damn near excessively. I dieted. I lost weight. I jumped through all the other hoops placed in front of me -- all to reach the final goal.

Surgery.

Surgery is a stressor in it's own right. First it's an abstract appointment consisting of doctors, locations, and costs. Then all to quickly it becomes frighteningly real. Flights need to be booked. Calls exchanged. Schedules drawn up to the hour. Money changes hands. Doctors are seen to assure your safety.

When it's not a flurry of activity, it's a grinding, intolerable wait. I found myself wanting it to be fucking over already. You hear stories about how many brain cells die for each minute of anaesthesia. And then, I'm in a hospital gown, fitted with sensors and tubes, splayed on a stainless steel table in a sterile room. I stare upward at the OR lights...

...and find them replaced with the low florescence of your hospital room. I struggled for consciousness, clarity. I ran through a quick list of cognitive and acuity tests. After a few minutes I was sure I was fine, if exhausted and drowsy with pain medication.

That was six days ago.

I was discharged on Monday after a very long weekend. Since then I've been recovering at a local guest house, watching far more television, and engaging in more hours of unproductivity than I otherwise would prefer. Being away from home, it's a bit like sick leave and a bit like vacation. The physical scares aren't then only ones healing.

Concept art for my Transgender Day of Rememberence Webcomics Project submission this year.

Flat Color Final

When I first started working on this a week ago, I had thought it would be a "quick" image. I felt I knew exactly what to do. Once I began working on it, however, I continued to find places to improve it. I think that this is my most impressive piece this year technically if nothing else.

I used a number of new techniques. I began with a blue ink layout to flesh out the image. This helped a great deal to rapidly develop the image. It reduced cleanup time magnificently. The lineart also used a new technique. Instead of black ink, I used a very dark brown for Novella. I ended up tweaking this to be even darker in my final version. The background lineart began as the same dark brown, but was changed to black for emotional effect. The difference is subtle, but I think it makes the character more lively. The flat color wasn't particularly special. It used the same fully opaque, multi-layer technique I used for earlier images. I had tweaked Novella's color scheme. In previous images she had gray eyes, and her jacket accent color was red. Now her eyes are cyan and her accent color is purple. To me, characters have a certain color that resonates with their core personality. Recent discoveries in the story prompted me to change Novella's accent color.

The above airbrushing, however, used a number of new tricks. Airbrushing largely involves the Burn and Dodge tool which manipulates the darkness or lightness of colors. The tool has three modes in GIMP: Shadow, Midtone, Highlights. (I believe Photoshop does as well.) I had always selected one based on the effects of the color and stuck with it throughout the image. I found this to be a mistake, particularly on the skin layers. A combination of modes created dramatic effects. You can see this in Novella's forehead near her hair.

Additional effects were also used for the window and the painting. The window features an internal reflection of the wood paneling. This is done as a duplicate of the paneling color later, offset, and semitransparent. I used the eraser tool to fade out the edges of the reflection. To add further depth, I added an additional layer with mold spots. This created the illusion of a dirty window. Honestly, I think it could be better, but it works for now. A semi-transparent gradient was also used on the painting to create the illusion of pane of glass. My signature is quietly in the picture's corner. The painting itself is based on a subplot of the anime series Haibane Renmei. If you have seen the series, you may grasp an additional meaning of the overall image.

The high resolution of this image turned out surprisingly well. I'm tempted to create a desktop background using the high-res version.

Prints, up to 12x18, are available at DeviantART.